Hospitalia
by wtfisadoitsu
Summary: Follow the hetalia characters around as humans, in their daily lives as hospital workers!
1. Chapter : intro

A/N:I came up with this AU in the week when I had to see several specialists for my health problems, I don't know where this story is going, but I've got a rough outline of the plot. Do tell me if there's anything wrong with grammar and tell me some useful things about the medical industry if you think it's crucial to the story. I really want to improve this story!(also can someone tell me how trains in New York work…)(shit also gets too deep at some parts if that's not what you're into I'm very gomen), so, let hospitalia begin!

*✧･ﾟ:* \(◕‿◕✿)/ *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

Alfred F. Jones, used what energy he had in his arm to turn off his alarm clock. He lazily dragged his left hand over his body and slammed it on the snooze button, his right hand still clutching onto his bolster.

He slowly opened his eyes and the light of his bedroom flooded his vision. Slow down light. However, the laws of physics prevent light from getting any slower unless any form of refraction occurs, in fact as light enters our eyes, it refracts, so the light is technically slowing down. So give pupils some time to constrict and deal with it, Alfred.

Just like how he would have to deal with work. Work was hellish sometimes, superiors would sometimes scold him in his office just because they could, and would get him to do all the paper work none of the other doctors wanted to do. He was basically a doctor that doubled up as a nurse, the only thing that got him going was his patients. He was a pediatrician, and specialized in care for children, being able to make them feel better and lift a burden of their parents' shoulders made him feel like he was doing something worthwhile. And friends, friends were another thing that made him happy to work.

He kicked his blanket off him and walked with heavy footsteps from his small room to his even smaller bathroom, it had tiled walls and floor, and I am in no way exaggerating its tininess. All he had in there was a small shower and a toilet that had been fitted in a tight corner to avoid consuming too much space, there was also a small sink that came with a small mirror that could open up and be used as a small cabinet. This was a time in Alfred's life for small things, he had a small, unsignificant position in his branch of medical care, worked in a small, cramped office and had yet accomplished anything big. Only small achievements and praise came his way, as well as being involved in too much small talk. Hospital staff politics is hard to understand, ok.

He took off his clothes, and I will not describe the bathing process because it's a waste of space in this story and, frankly speaking, we've heard enough about this small boy. Let's move onto someone more significant.

Psychiatrist Arthur Kirkland sat in his bathtub, having probably the most miserable kind of bubble bath there was. Foam was thin and inconsistent and was not fun to sit in, the water was neither refreshing or soothing, and it was six forty seven in the morning and he would have hardly any time to enjoy his bath.

Screw the bath, Arthur thought, you are a busy man and you will get a more relaxing bath once work is done. He got out of the bath and had a quick shower to rid himself of the measly bubbles. He dried himself off and wrapped his bath robe around him. He had an incredibly large bathroom, but it was horribly plain and somewhat of an eyesore. Although the products and furniture in it were expensive, it wasn't tasteful and nothing complimented, well, anything. Interesting how this tells us more about Arthur, a big-shot with with several interesting traits but zero personality and incapable of enjoying what money he had or spending it well. This bathroom-personality analysis is getting too deep for six fifty in the morning.

Not that Arthur was rich or anything, he got lucky and managed to get this wonderfully pleasant house that also happened to be wonderfully cheap. He put on a pair of briefs that looked like every other one he had, threw on a button up shirt that looked like every other one he had, put on a knit sweater-vest(it was argyle, just like almost all of the ones he had), wore a pair of well-fitting pants that looked like every other one he had and put on a pair of grey woolen socks, an as you would expect, the only socks he had were grey woolen socks, this is a good example of Arthur's tastelessness, he wore basically the same thing everyday, but in different colour schemes. Arthur looked at himself in the mirror, why does his facial hair take so long to grow? He's a very clean shaven man, colleagues often make fun of him for this, among many other things.

Arthur ran down to the first floor of his house to where his kitchen was. A kitchen that was horribly basic and had only staple ingredients. How bland. He toasted some bread and brewed some tea. Another way of telling Arthur was a bland person, through his horribly bland breakfast.

You know what, Arthur has been too bland and I shouldn't have wasted this much space on him.

On the other side of New York, Francis Bonnefoy, who is incredibly interesting as well as being capable of having stubble, was frying himself a cheese omelet, to have the beaten egg completely cooked but not burnt, as well as have the cheese melted on the inside was hard to achieve for some, but Francis had no difficulty. He then switched over to a grill and took off some tomatoes he had been grilling. Grill food if possible, he always reminded himself, every good dietitian should know food is healthier when grilled, not fried!

He grabbed his plate and used a pair of tongs to take the tomatoes off the grill, in one swift action, he put down his tongs, picked up a wooden spatula and lifted his omelet off the pan. Smooth moves, Francis, smooth moves.

The morning light was filtering through his windows and lit up his house, filling it with a liveliness of some sort, complementing the earthy smell of his kitchen. His plate now had a cheese omelet, grilled tomatoes and a balsamic salad he prepared earlier. All that was left was to pour his coffee.

Preparing a good breakfast took more time and required him to wake up earlier, but it was worth it, a good breakfast is what keeps him going, at least until lunch. Besides, this isn't the only reason for him waking up early.

Francis, is an amazingly stylish man. And it takes some serious maintenance to be this stylish. He was wearing well fitted navy blue dress shirt, but had the sleeves folded up and was wearing and apron over it and his trousers. There was no way he would risk staining any of his clothes, no way, never, ever.

He placed his coffee on his table and took off his apron, he lived relatively close to his place of work, so there was plenty of time. Francis tucked into his food, it's good to live this well, and to fill your life with good clothes, good food and wine, and making sure you had time for yourself. It was a life that he always wanted to live, even from young, but sometimes, things got too good, they were boring.

Francis took a sip of his coffee, it was good coffee. Francis, however, drank this everyday, and it's once rich aromas and flavor that gave away it was the cream of the crop, was now as average as instant coffee to Francis. Having too much of a good thing too often makes it ordinary, and it further dulls down anything of a worse quality. Eventually, nothing becomes good enough. Life gets boring when being fabulous is part of your daily routine.

I think we've heard enough of this man.

Wang Yao stepped out of his apartment and started to walk towards the metro. The autumn wind blew his fine baby hairs all over his face, and at one point, blew his neatly tied, low ponytail in his face. He looked like a young man setting off to make himself known , however, his Chinese genes made him look way younger than he actually was, and had already established himself as an important member in his team of doctors caring for physical ailments.

He could see the sign that marked the entry to the underground metro, he quickened his pace, it was going to drizzle soon. And he didn't have an umbrella. The sky was bright and cloudless earlier in the morning but once he stepped out of his apartment building, the sky was quickly turning a light grey.

He walked down the stairs leading to the train station, he walked slowly though, walking too fast down the stairs hurt his back, this is pretty much a sure sign of aging. Two women in their 30s walked quickly past him, he could hear their conversation.

"Young adults nowadays have no sense urgency,"

"Agreed! We walked faster than him down the stairs, and we're wearing high-heels!"

They snickered a little, before walking off. Yao groaned.

" I'm probably 10 years older than you, aru,", he muttered under his breath.

He finally reached the foot of the staircase, and entered the station. He rummaged through his bag to find his novel, East of Eden, a good classic, a book that he would often read to and from work. However, amongst his files and documents, he couldn't find it. And then he remembered, he left it on the nightstand.

Yao, however, wasn't going to waste his time on the train staring idly into space, he got up and went to the newspaper kiosk.

"Ni hao,", the young disgruntled stall worker greeted him in a monotonous voice. His face was pale and ridden with acne, probably a teenager unwillingly working for a family member at their stall. Yao thought the boy must have assumed he couldn't speak English, he would chide him about judging people based on their race, but he let the boy off.

"I speak English,", he replied, not a trace of his accent in his voice. After years of living in Manhattan, he'd learn how to speak like a true New Yorker, letting his accent out only when with family or friends.

The young stall worker still gave him a disgruntled look, his expression didn't falter. Yao figured he'd quickly escape this situation, he picked up a newspaper and paid for it, and quickly left, as he walked off, he could hear the stall worker shuffling back into the shop.

And at this moment, his train arrived.

He found a seat and sat down. He didn't immediately read his paper, he started to ponder about the incident that just occurred.

As time passed, Chinese have become more and more present in the United States, nowadays the sight of an east Asian is not uncommon, and Asians have been more widely accepted into communities, as well as treated better and with more respect.

And it's easy to see that being Asian in New York isn't as weird as it used to be. In fact, it wasn't weird to be of a different race anymore. In the train carriage that Wang Yao was in, there were more people of colour than people of white descent, and even these people had ancestors who came from many different countries. Suppose it's just a reminder we are all different, and maybe greeting him in Chinese was what that boy thought was right.

Yao opens up his newspaper, maybe he's being too touchy.

Ivan Braginski steps out of the taxi, and uses his suitcase as a makeshift umbrella to shield himself from the rain.

He brisk walks into towards the building and then up the stairs to his place of work, the general hospital, as he approaches the entrance, he feels a gust of warm air blown out of the building and then resumes his normal once he's under the shelter , he bends down a little as he walks into the building.

Due to his massive height(182 cm tall), Ivan has issues walking through doors, and often has to bend, but he's accustomed to it.

The entrance of the building is a weird combination as the door is a modern sliding door and the hospital entrance is a 1800s style grand hall, with marble tiled floor and decorated pillars holding up the arched roof, new electric chandeliers have been installed in place of the old candle-lit ones. On the walls there are several info-graphs depicting the long history of the hospital.

The available receptionists greet him, as they always do with staff, Ivan nods back as he opens a back door behind the counter. To be a receptionist at the main entrance is the best kind of job receptionist can get in this hospital, you've got to be really polite and helpful to be placed here.

Behind the door is a room containing the staff passes of all worker, cameras are installed everywhere to make sure there is no theft of passes. This makes the room claustrophobic and intrusive, two things that really don't go well together. Staff often don't close the door behind them, take their passes and quickly leave, Ivan is no exception, the room is pretty damn freaky.

He walks off to block B, where general practitioners like him work. The high arched ceiling ends and his head now barely touches it. It's alright until signboards suspended from the ceiling get in the way.

Ivan heads down the corridor, nurses and doctors are rushing around, some are already diagnosing patients, but Ivan's shift starts at 8, so there's no rush for him.

Block B's GP sector is as usual, busy staff, clean air with a sterile smell lingers round, and rooms and corridors are well lit. Some janitors are still cleaning windows and watering flowers. Nurses are changing shifts at the receptionists' area, and patients are slowly streaming in.

The corridor is the most well lit part of the GP sector, so well lit it's sometimes blinding. The doctor's doors along the corridor are black and potted plants are placed in between each door. Honestly, potted plants serve no purpose, hospitals place them there in attempt to spruce up the place, but really, all they do is take up space, time and water, which are three things that can be used in better ways, however, Ivan acknowledges that if hospitals didn't purchase so many potted plants, the potted plant industry would go down the drain and many people would lose their jobs and there would be an economy crisis, so good for you potted plants. You've saved us from economy crisis.

Ivan's office is towards the end of the hallway, he opens his door, and he is greeted with the sight of his doctor's coat hanging on a rack next to his well-organized desk. Ivan closes the door behind him as he sighs to himself, grateful that his office light isn't as blinding as the hallway light.

He takes his woolen trench coat off and puts his doctor's coat on. He proceeds to check his emails and do some filing of documents. This is pretty much what happens everyday before the patients come in.

This is going to be yet another long day at the hospital.


	2. Chapter 2: candles 1

**A/N: So erm ya, there'll be many many more characters to come and I still have no idea where this story is going but I'll keep adding onto it and hope I get somewhere. Also narration will change in this chapter(If narration is really weird, please note that this is a stylistic choice). Enjoy! ****❀‿❀**

**Please note that:**

**Leon-Hong Kong**

**Laura-Belgium**

**Anneliese-Fem!Austria**

**Alice-Fem!England**

**Govert-Netherlands**

**Mei-Taiwan**

**(I'm involving genderbents in this story to make up for a lack of female hetalia characters.)**

Alfred's POV:

The sight of the name plate on the wooden door greets me, "DR. ALFRED FITZGERALD JONES" is printed on it in bold, serious letters. I don't really know if letters can be described as serious but I'm just gonna go with it.

I open the door and turn on the lights.

My office has way too many things, too many files, too much paper work, too many filing cabinets. My coat is on my chair and my equipment is kept in their respective places. Charts of the human anatomy are pasted all over my walls, as well as some posters to tell kids to live healthy and eat well. They're everywhere.

My office has too many things it's overwhelming, not to mention how much space the weighing scale and sink take up, as well as the stuff toys my superiors have told me to place here and there. It's supposed to make the kids feel better but there's nothing good about having furbies staring into your soul.

I would take them away but the janitors would just replace those furbies with more furbies.

Goddamned furbies. I don't even know how the hospital has so many furbies!

My office, however, is not only different because of how small it is compared to the others, but is also different because I decorate it according to what festivities are coming soon.

In this case, Halloween.

I've got some bunting hung up on my walls and around my table, and some plastic pumpkins with candy in them. The candy being health bars.

My colleague, Tino, told me to quickly replace the cadburies and snickers with something healthier. Apparently it goes against my job description to give kids candy, yeah whatever.

But something else stands out, there's a candy corn scented large Yankee candle sitting on my desk, it's wrapped with purple ribbon. I walk towards my desk and pick it up. No note, no letter, and I don't remember what really happened yesterday, or the day before. Can't blame me, been working really late recently. Did I buy this candle for myself? Nah, it wouldn't be wrapped in ribbon otherwise…but who gave me this?

Well, finders' keepers…right? I set the candle on my desk and start to look for a lighter, or some matches, I don't really know.

And then it occurs to me that there's no way they would let a doctor keep matches or lighters in their office, and even if they did, there would be no way anyone would trust me with fire. And anyway, the candle shouldn't be lit! Yeah it's a fire hazard and a curious kid could end up burning themselves or setting my office on fire, or maybe a patient would be allergic to the smell? Or maybe there're smoke sensors in the room and the candle would just end up causing everyone a shitton of trouble, besides, I shouldn't be lighting up a candle that I'm not even sure is mine, I probably would end up wasting someone's money. Yeah this totally isn't something I should do. Defs isn't chivalrous or anything like that.

I squeeze my ass into my chair, there isn't enough room to pull my chair out completely and sit down properly. That's how small my office is.

It's a Tuesday. Tuesday is good. On Monday, Thursday and Friday, I work during lunch time and eat in the mid-afternoon. Tuesday is good, I get to eat at the canteen.

Wednesday is better though, there's more company.

Today I have lunch with eyebrows and flamboyant frenchie.

Eyebrows is basically an old man trapped in the body of a twenty-something. He nags at me as if he were my older brother…or dad. Older brothers don't really nag.

Frenchie is cool sometimes, the food he cooks is the bomb-diggity, you can't get any better food than food frenchie makes. Sometimes he's really weird and annoying. There was this one time he didn't stop making sexual innuendos about food an entire day. Pretty weird, and somewhat freaky considering he looks like a huge perv sometimes. Thank God he actually isn't.

He's also really good at picking up chicks, something eyebrows is somewhat incapable of. Maybe his eyebrows repel them? I don't really know.

I look at my calendar, even though Halloween is next Thursday, the staff agreed to have a pot luck the day before, when everyone has lunch at the same time. I've been working at this hospital for almost a year, and this is the first, "staff party" (or whatever) I'll be attending. A part of me knows that if I worked at a corporation, I would probably have more staff parties to attend.

It's almost 8 now, which means the patients will be coming in soon.

Yeah, I should probably get my act together.

At this moment, someone opens my door.

"Hey, Alfred, how're things going?", Lovino asks me as he places some files on my desk.

"Fine! But, where's Feliciano?"

Lovino's POV:

I opened Alfred's door, "Hey, Alfred, how're things going?", I asked him.

He looks a little surprised to see me, but he still has that stupid goofy face, honestly, I'm not shocked that other doctors can't take him seriously, probably why he's stuck in this dingy office.

"Fine! But where's Feliciano?", He replies. Yeah, can't blame him for wanting to know where Feliciano is. It's always Feliciano. Hey Lovino where is Feliciano? Did Feliciano show up today? Can I just talk to others for once without a mention of Feliciano?

"Meh, Feli called in sick this morning.", even though there's nothing wrong with him. How does he still have a job with his shit attitude. And people say I'm the lazier sibling!

"Oh, I hope he gets better…", Alfred looks like he's reminiscing about a close friend. Why does he care, it's not like he and Feli are that close anyway.

"Yeah, you might also wanna put your coat on, your shift starts soon.", I tell him.

"Oh! Yeah forgot about that…heh.", he turns his body and takes his coat off his chair. Sometimes I wonder how he's actually a doctor. I heard that when he was a kid he didn't even know what 'colds' were.

"Bye, then,". I step back and close the door, I can hear him shout 'bye!' after I close it.

I was gonna walk straight but a potted plant got in my way. Why do we have potted plants all over this place? I mean, there are so many more ways to decorate this hospital. A nice wall paper, better seats in the waiting room, changing up the lighting. And it's not like the kids that come here are gonna appreciate all the plants. They might even be irritated by them, just like everyone else. In fact, plants aren't only placed along the hallway, they're placed all over the waiting room, some are even hung on the wall. And in between blocks B and C, there's a garden. That's too many plants for a building. This is something I'm very passionate about.

I reach the receptionists' desk, Toris told me to come back here after giving Alfred the files. I wish I could complain about people to him, because sometimes people are irritating.

But there're so many lady nurses around. And ladies don't like it when men bitch or complain.

Ladies.

No don't think of ladies too much. You're not a pervert like that Francis!

So I reach the counter and Toris greets me with a slight nod and a stupid smile.

"Lovino, could you take these to Doctor Braginski downstairs?", he asks me.

"Yeah…sure", I take the files while thinking 'why me'.

Toris's POV:

Lovino takes the files from me with a slightly sour expression on his face, sometimes I wish he could be more enthusiastic about his work.

I look through some referendum letters as I hear Feliks dealing with a patient: a woman and her daughter.

Feliks is unusually formal and polite today. He usually adds some sass or 'pizzazz' or whatever you call it. He's also being really meticulous, his work area is really well organized. A rare occurrence.

Now he's complimenting both mother and daughter about how pretty their hair is. That isn't normal. I can't emphasize how many times he's "critiqued" a woman's dress sense and ended up with a furious patient, screaming at him and head nurse Alice. God, he's almost gotten himself fired several times. Maybe a superior scolded him? Yeah that's probably why he's being so nice.

Mother and daughter are laughing with him, they thank him for his service and proceed to the waiting area. Feliks is hard to understand, sometimes I don't know why I'm his friend. The loud beep from the television screen indicates for the next patient to see the doctor.

And the loud beep has interrupted my train of thought. And not only that, a patient is approaching me, time to get to work.

Lovino's POV:

I get off the escalator and now I'm at level 1. I was going to turn but a potted plant was in my way. Seriously? They even placed potted plants near escalators?

And then I remembered what I was thinking about earlier on, potted plants.

As I was saying, there are gardens all over this goddamned building. Let me tell you a thing about this hospital. There are so many potted plants we could just shut down the hospital and sell off the plants and we probably would still have enough money to pay everyone for a month. That's how many potted plants we have. If we were to become a flower shop we would bankrupt all other florists in New York State. This is something I am very passionate about.

I quicken my pace, to reach my destination faster. The nurse in front of me quickens her pace too. After a while it looks like she's trying to avoid me. Then I realize the nurse is Natalia. Well no surprise that she's trying to avoid me, she avoids everyone like the plague. All except her "dear brother" (that creep Braginski).Crazy bitch. She's one girl I'd never attempt to flirt with.

She glares at me and her stare pierces through my soul. I am actually scared. I give her a smile. Why the fuck would you do that, Lovino. That was a shit move, Lovino. Great, she's probably going to sell my remains to some butcher next week.

She walks ahead of me and turns a corner to where one of the ERs are. She probably did that to get away from me, administrative nurses like her aren't often sent to do jobs at the ER.

Then I hear a small shriek.

Is that Natalia?

Natalia's POV:

I can hear Lovino Vargas catching up to me. Everytime I walk faster I can hear him quicken his pace too. What pest.

I glared at him and he smiled at me. What is he trying to do here? Listen up, Lovino Vargas, I'm pretty sure you're terrified of me. What's with you being friendly all of a sudden.

I turn a corner and walk towards to ER room where I've been called to help with a surgery. There was a huge car crash and there're too many casualties for the usual nurses to handle, so they called in some support.

I keep my head turned to make sure Lovino isn't following me. Haven't these idiots learnt to n-

"boo!", I shriek a little and then quickly maintain my composure. It's not easy for someone to catch me off guard.

I looked up and it was a paramedic. Ugh, those paramedics think their God's gift to women. Carriedo thinks his ass is phenomenal and the older Beilschmidt never misses the chance to brag about his "5 meters". One, five meters is anatomically impossible, and his is probably 5 centimeters. This one was the one with spiky hair. What's his name again? Mathias? Yeah, it's Mathias.

"You're going to regret that," I say in an angry whisper.

He just shrugs his shoulders. Then he folds his arms in. Yeah, sure, don't say anything. Is he trying to tell me he's too punk rock to speak? Shut up (not that you're speaking to me), Mathias, I'm the most punk rock person in this hospital.

"Just leave me alone, you know I could kill you with a clothes hanger,"

I walk past him and straight towards the ER room at the end. Why is everyone always in my way? First Lovino, now Mathias?

Mathias's POV:

I know what she's thinking. No, Natalia, I'm way more punk rock than you. Heck, I'm not even punk rock. I'm heavy metal.

"Just leave me alone, you know I could kill you with a clothes hanger,", she "threatens" me. First off, I'm pretty sure you can't kill someone with a clothes hanger, trust me, I'm a doctor. Sort of. A doctor that drives around town saving people. The best kind of doctor there is!

I turn a corner and I see Lovino heading straight for where the GPs are. I was heading for the escalator. But some potted plants got in my way. And I had to walk around them.

Potted plants are really irritating. I wouldn't mind if there were a few of them here and there but this hospital literally has 5 potted plants within a 10 foot radius, no matter where you are.

Thank fuck I work outside the hospital, I don't have to deal with all these plants.

I have to go to Block C to pass these documents to Berwald (Berwald, what a weird name). To get to Block C I could either take the overhead bridge or I could walk past one car park and escape a maze of endless alley ways that take you to God knows where. I mean, the last time I went through the alley ways was to get to block A, and I ended up at block E! And I didn't even know we had a block E. So taking the overhead bridge is pretty much common sense.

To get to the bridge though, I'd have to take the escalators to level 3 and walk past 3 departments. That's a lot of walking and I am, frankly speaking, really tired. C'mon, I've been taking 15 injured folks up and down some stretchers the whole morning. But it's all in a day of being manly as hell!

So I take the escalators, and I notice, apart from all the potted plants, little things that are associated with Halloween. It's nice to see the people here be a little festive. The convenience store on the first floor is starting to sell Halloween sweets, the café on the second floor is selling weird drinks that have something to do with candy corn(sounds fucking gross, something Alfred would like), I'm hearing kids talk to their parents about going trick or treating. Too bad I'm too old for that. I wanna go trick or treating! Why is going up to a stranger's house and asking for sweets something only kids are allowed to do. Why can't adults do that too. Why would you take what childhood joy is left of us away society.

Enough rambling, I'm approaching the overhead bridge.

There's a garden that's in between Block B and C. The management claims that it's there for visitors to enjoy nature. But tell me management, how can we enjoy a garden if we can't fucking visit it?

Yeah thanks management for building a fancy garden with exotic plants imported from overseas, and then realizing these plants can't survive in our New York climate, and then having to spend even more money building a greenhouse around it and buying het generators, and then completely sealing off the place to the public. Thanks management, it's not as if that space could have been used to build a place for people to sit down and the money you spent on the garden totally couldn't have been used for something else like more lifts or escalators so people can move around easier, or buying, y'know, a new ambulance for the paramedics because the one we've been using was bought in 1995.

So I'm at block C, and their facilities are so much better, block C finished construction 3 years after block B, and they've got all these fancy tiled floors and fancy glass windows and it's just not fair.

However, they have just as many potted plants as us over in block B so everything's alright.

They have fewer patients today, I've noticed, but I don't even come here often so my assumptions might be totally off, I make a turn at where the specialists are, Berwald's office is room 17, yup, approaching it.

I swing the door open and sing,"Berwaaaaaaaald!"

Berwald's POV:

"Keep your eyes open during the procedure, don't blink", I told my patient, a young boy. He nodded. Then the door swung open.

That irritating paramedic's here, why did they send him when I asked for a nurse.

"Berwaaaaaaaald!", he screeches.

"Sh'sh, there're people outs'de judging you", I warn him as I continue checking my patient's eye.

"Who cares? Anyway here're the documents they sent you, you're gonna have to help with some eye surgery for the car crash victims this Friday."

I flip through the documents and set them aside, at the corner of my eye, I can see Anneliese judging him, it's no surprise, what an idiot.

"You may go.", I told my patient. He left the room quickly.

"Berwald, that kid was terrified,"

"He wasn't, he was cooperative,"

"His teeth were chattering,"

"M'be it's cold,"

Mathias sighs and he turns his back, "you're too boring, I'll leave now, see you at lunch?"

"I'm eating l'nch in the office t'day."

"Meh, byeeeeeeee."

After he leaves I roll my eyes, it's a wonder how Tino, Lukas, Emil and I put up with him.

The rest of the day up till lunch passes by normally, except for when we heard crying from Yao's office and when Laura came into our office and asked, "Um…is this Yao Wang's office?"

Anneliese replied her, "Used to be, administration shifted his office to the next room."

Laura thanked her and went through the back passageway, it connects all the rooms in our row.

Apart from that, nothing much happened.

Leon's POV:

"Stop babying me! I'm here to do an internship! And, like, please call me Leon!", I shrieked at Yao. Shrieked? Shrieked.

"Aiyah! You are too inexperienced and I cannot let you mess up the procedure, and why can't I call you by the name your parents gave you? Kha Loung is a perfectly normal Cantonese name! why do young people nowadays give themselves all these fancy English names…"

"Please call me Leon!", I told him once again, I was on the verge of tears. This honestly sounds like a pretty pathetic thing to cry about, but I was really in state of distress. People have always called me Leon, even my parents. And now I have to work under this Chinese man who behaves more like my grandmother and is apparently my distant cousin. (The Wong family is pretty extended. Well, our surname is Wong in Hong Kong, it's Wang wherever this guy is from) Now not only is he calling me by a name I don't identify with, he's also giving me no work to do. Yes, I understand that I'm inexperienced, but that's why I'm working under you, Yao. So I can get experience for a job.

And then I cried, a part of me felt really, really pathetic for crying over something like this, and the other part thought that he was being really, really unfair. It's probably the hormones, I'm 19 but I'm still going through puberty.

"Then what do you want me to call you? Jia Long?"

"OH GOD I JUST TOLD YOU TO CALL ME LEON."

"Don't shout at your elders!"

"We're cousins! We're in the same generation!", I was tired standing up, I slouched in a corner next to a cupboard. I sat down and held my legs to my chest and hugged them, and buried my face in my arms.

"Aiyah, boys should not be crying about minor things, aru, you have to be a man!", amongst Yao's "encouraging" words I could hear footsteps, and someone leaving the room.

"Who was that?", I asked him.

"That was a nurse, I think her name is Laura, she must have seen you cry, and now thinks you're a wuss!"

That was pretty insulting. But I laughed, the way he says 'wuss' in his Chinese accent is hilarious.

"Yao, I think I need some space, can I walk around the hospital?"

"This room already has so much space!"

"No! I meant to have some 'me time'", I answered him. Geez, he's probably feigning ignorance. How could you live in New York for so long and not know the phrase 'I need some space'?

"So you want to walk around, aru?", he pushed me aside and opened the cupboard a little, he reached in and pulled out a white cardboard box, on it 'Mei' was written, "can you take this to block A level 3? The aesthetics department is there and you should know it's where Mei works, can you deliver this to her, aru?"

"Yao, I'm working under you as an intern. I'm not here to run errands for you,"

"But why not do it while you're at it, you know the English saying: kill two birds with one stone, aru! You get to have a relaxing walk and help me deliver this box while you're at it!"

Might as well help him.

I took the box and headed straight for the aesthetics department.

So to get there I could take the overhead bridges, or I could walk past two carparks, I went for the carparks. Lots of staff members complain about getting lost among the alleyways and the carparks. But why walk past alleyways when you can just cut through carparks.

Actually, Yao might have mentioned once or twice that we would be fined or something. But as long as I run everything should be alright.

I run really fast across both carparks, holding the box in front of me. It was a challenge but I managed. I couldn't hear the contents rattling. Given that the box was heavy and it wasn't making any noise, I guessed that it was packed tightly with… whatever was in there.

Yeah my arms were basically dead, and my face was a combination of hot and sweaty, and frost-bitten. I'm not used to cold temperatures like this, doesn't usually happen in Hong Kong. I put the box down and start flinging my arms around to make sure they still work. This wasn't my idea of a relaxing walk.

"Hey, Leon!", I heard a voice from behind me call.

Yong Soo's POV:

"Hey, Leon!", I shouted at the top of my lungs. What's the kid doing here? Anyway, he looks tired and I should really help him out!

He turns to face me, his expression is still blank even when he's tired. I wave at him and he rolls his eyes.

"Yo!", I greet him. He rolls his eyes again. "Don't do that ever again."

"Fine...anyway! What've YOU been up to?", I nudge him slightly.

He ignores me and shrugs. Or maybe he's just too tired. "give me the box, I'll carry it for you,", I said. He uses his leg to push it aside, "I'll just deliver this to Mei myself,"

"Mei?"

"Her name is written in huge letters on this box, Yong Soo,"

I didn't notice. Ahahah, oh well.

"I'm going to see her anyway, we've got a client who's asked for both of our services and we're meeting to talk about her condition,"

I pick it up and I can feel my back break. It's pretty heavy. I would look inside, but if Mei saw that I took off the tape of the box and looked through her stuff she would probably, no wait, definitely be angry with me. Leon bends over and is panting heavily.

"You should sit down somewhere, you look like you're going to pass out!", I advise him. He nods and walks towards a gazebo, while I head for Mei's office.

Pretty much all of Block A is old. Like old, old. This place was restored in the 1980s and construction was finished in 1989 with block B. Then the hospital decided to have an aesthetics department. They didn't want to build another block so they just built and extra floor in block A.

That's why level 3 is so different compared to level 1 and 2. The aesthetics department is pretty neat! It's where Mei works as a dermatologist and I work as a plastic surgeon. Wow Korean plastic surgeon wow how stereotypical.

The floor tiles change as I get off the staircase leading to level 3. The floor on level 2 is painted a reddish brown(and is pretty hard to walk on), whereas the floor on level 3 is tiled. The tiles are black and incredibly glossy(admittedly, still pretty hard to walk on). Lots of our furniture and facilities are way more modern than those downstairs. Sometimes the workers downstairs bitch about us because we get the good stuff. Jealous much?

I knock on her door several times. Not really knock. My hands are full from carrying a huge box so I "throw" myself at her door.

She opens her door.

"Mei! Mei, open up!,"

"Hi, what is-", I cut her off by shoving the box in her hands. She holds it up and looks at it for a bit. She then takes it to her desk without saying a word.

"Yong, who gave this to you?", she asks me as she rummages through her drawers.

"Leon gave it to me, I don't know where he got it from though", I reply. She finds a pair of scissors and uses a blade to slit open the top of the box. She opens it up, and heaves a sigh of relief.

"What's in there anyway?"

"Candles,", she answers. That box was pretty heavy so there must have been way too many candles in there. I know she likes scented candles but what would she do with so many of them.

"Anyway, forget the candles, let's go to the block C canteen to discuss what we're really meeting up for, I'm pretty hungry too,", I would have objected going all the way to block C to eat if their food wasn't so good, and the canteen's really clean. Everyone has their own horror story about how disgusting some of the canteens are sometimes.

We take the bridge. Alleyways are too confusing and there's no way we're gonna get ourselves fined for crossing the carparks.

It's not officially lunch time yet, so it's easy to find a table. Mei and I decide to sit down for a while and talk about our department, but it's hard to talk about work when you've got basically everyone else in the room talking loudly and laughing their lungs out?

"I wish someone could just come over and punch them,", Mei remarked casually. I tried to not get too annoyed by it. Besides, I'm usually the one that's annoying.

And as if on cue, Laura walked into the canteen with fists clenched. You could literally see hell in her eyes.

She walked over to where the paramedics were seated and gave Antonio a hard slap. And then another.

I could hear her mutter something along the lines of, "the second one's for Govert," , before making her way off.

Mei and I didn't know what to say. It was good that they shut up, but did what happen actually just happen? Mei didn't just accept it at that. She rummaged through her purse and fished out her smartphone. "I'm going to give Laura a call,"

It didn't take her long to answer, "Laura, hi…could you explain to me what just happened?...no but could you…yes…yes I have my candles, what do you mean…wait…no you didn't tell me what happened!", she put down her phone upset as she didn't get any answers.

Honestly speaking, this hospital is pretty weird.

**A/N: This chapter doesn't give any answers as to what exactly happened, but simply follows one path of the story that ends up with seeing Laura slap Antonio. You'll know how things eventually come to be in the next chapter!**

**Also, I'm not using da ze in korea's speech patterns because da ze is a Japanese verbal tic. China still uses aru because it's a stereotype of a Chinese accent.**


	3. Chapter 3: candles 2

Chapter 3: More candles

**A/N: We last left off at Yong Soo's POV, where he saw Laura slap Antonio pretty damn hard. This is what happened if we follow another string of events. Take note all the events in chapter 2 and 3 happen between 8am and 11am with the exception of flashbacks. Let's continue with where we left off from Toris.**

**Take note that:**

**Laura-Belgium**

**Govert-Netherlands**

**Alice-Fem!England**

**Mei-Taiwan**

**Kim-Vietnam**

**Toris's POV:**

The patient leaves and I have to get back to looking through referendum letters. There're a few too many patients today. After one comes for my assistance, another one comes immediately, and then a queue starts to form and it's all hands on deck. All the administrative nurses like me are now in full swing with work.

Everything's going smoothly until we hear a woman scream.

Feliks was the receptionist she talked to. He must have said something to have angered her. She's completely rabid, screaming incomprehensible sentences. Patients in the queue and seated down all turn their attention to her, I can see some are bewildered by her antics and others are trying hard not to laugh.

Feliks isn't making this situation better by arguing back. I could see that he was trying really hard to be patient at first, but he gave up and exploded in her face. She looked really taken aback that he would argue back. Feliks says something along the lines of 'lady I'm, like, trying to be nice here'. All the nurses behind the counter cringe at him digging himself a deeper hole. I can hear a nurse mutter "someone's not coming to work tomorrow".

It doesn't take long for Alice to come out and deal with this.

**Alice's POV:**

I'm sitting at the back of the printing room sending some faxes. For a long time I'm staring blankly into space. The printing room is just what it sounds like: Big office printers and endless stacks of paper. The old electric fan is whirring noisily in the corner, today's one of the good days where it actually works. I glance over at the fax machine and after all this time it's not even half done with its job. Then I go back to staring into space and pondering.

I'm the head nurse of this department. I still remember very clearly the day when I was given the title of head nurse. It was just last year, I swelled with pride and joy, all the hard work I've put into this job had not gone to waste. And to be able to get the position at such a young age is an astounding achievement. I thought I could finally take a back seat and let others do the heavy work. I remember when the other nurses started to address me as 'ma'am'. God, to be able to hold this much authority was good.

Unfortunately, being head nurse doesn't come with much authority. As the older nurses retired, I was left with lazy nurses my age. And when the younger nurses came in, I not only had to mentor them (because those with experience were too lazy to do anything) but put up with what nonsense they gave me and having to take the blame as seniors in administration reprimanded me, not them. From that point on, being head nurse meant running every single errand there was and taking the fall for everyone, while the others did the bare minimum.

My thoughts are interrupted when I hear a faint scream, followed by quick footsteps coming in my direction. I look up and I see a younger nurse running down the narrow corridor towards me. Once she reaches the printing room, she puffs and pants for a bit before delivering me the unpleasant news.

"Ma'am, Feliks is causing trouble again!", she exclaims. A part of me is shocked that he would dare cause more trouble, another part of me is not surprised he wouldn't heed my advice. I follow her out of the room and behind the front desk.

A crowd of nurses and patients are forming, I can see visitors chatting about the situation before them. But what irritates me is the sight of my colleagues standing by idly and not helping when they clearly could.

"That's enough", I interfere with the argument. I gesture to Toris to come over and deal with our visitor.

"Come with me, Feliks,"

I bring him to the printing room where we talk it out for the 3rd time this month. I don't think I've ever met a more argumentative nurse before.

When words are being exchanged between us, it feels like a battlefield. Feliks is being dismissive and having accusations of the woman. I try to be patient and see where he's coming from, but it's not hard to see he's being unreasonable and rude. A proper lady knows when enough is enough. I try to silence him, to reason with him. But he doesn't listen. He sounds like a spoilt, whiny child.

There's an awkward moment of silence for a while. From the looks of it, everyone has said all there is to be said. In the background I can hear the fax has finally been sent which is good. Once again, all the noise there is in the room again is the whirring of the fan.

A nurse comes in.

"Ma'am, administration would like to speak to Feliks,"

I nod and he follows her without protest. I suppose he understands that for bad behavior there are consequences. It doesn't take a genius to know that he'll be suspended from work for a while.

I take a seat on the cheap ikea stool. Feliks is young and new to this. Perhaps administration should take him out of his position working at the counter. And give him a more 'behind the scenes' job. We planned on doing that at first with him because he started out awfully shy, and then he started to open up and we kept him there. Now he's simply rude. I've seen my fair share of unruly nurses and usually a change in job improves their work attitude.

There's really only one person to talk to when I'm stuck in a rut like this.

**Arthur's POV:**

"And that was how I found closure to my problems,"

I nod as my patient finishes telling me about her anecdote. She twiddles with her thumbs as she looks round the office. I click my pen and start writing down what she said in my notebook.

My office feels unfamiliar now. Even though I've simply shifted around a few shelves and books, everything else is still the same. I've got the same polished wooden desk, same mahogany cabinets, same woolen rug. Books have simply been moved around to make space for new additions. My patient is still sitting on the same Edwardian leather arm chair I've used all these years. And I'm still sitting opposite her as I always do in my swivel chair. Even when changing up my workspace, there is never much difference between the final product and the original. I'm not the kind of person who does well with change.

Maybe it's the candles. I had this vintage candle holder for a long time, but never got around to buying tea lights. This morning however, I found a pack of cinnamon scented tea lights in the drawer under my desk! I borrowed a lighter and lit them without a second thought.

"That's good,", I say as I finish writing the last sentence in my notebook. I look up at the cheap plastic clock on the wall, "this concludes our session then, I'll see you next week.". Just as she leaves, Alice enters my office.

"Arthur, you're not busy now are you?", she asks me.

It doesn't take long for her to start complaining about an 'insolent, rebellious nurse'. The nurse being Feliks. At some points she looks like she's going to start swearing a lot, but she restrains. I've known Alice for a while and I can tell she hasn't completely grown out of her punk phase, and is trying very hard to be a proper lady.

From personal experience, Feliks isn't that bad, he just does things his way, is horrible at planning and is incredibly impulsive. If you're good with your words he's easily swayed.

"Alice, you'll have to leave now, I have a patient coming soon.", I tell her, "I understand,", she replies.

Her attention is suddenly drawn towards the candles. In her glasses I can see the reflection of the flickering candles, "I think I should leave now, in fact, I have something to deal with.", she isn't lying. I can read her expressions.

**Laura's POV:**

I'm completely exhausted.

Behind me I can hear the newborns crying. Some crying out of frustration, some crying in hunger, some crying for their parents. There might even be a few crying to piss me off. Wait, I'll be done with the milk soon, you little rascals. As much as I love children and taking care of them, sometimes I think doing it as a job might not be for me. But at the end of the day, everything always turns out fine.

I run my hand through my hair as I use the other one to stir the formula milk.

Yesterday was taxing for all of us, there were two twin births, a triplet birth, and the births of countless other children. Not to mention the caesarians, don't mention the caesarians. It was child after child after child. The rooms have been substantially filled up after that.

Working in the maternity wards is really tiring, there's never peace, and it's never completely clean. Behind me, some colleagues are coddling some crying newborns (and are, thankfully, largely successful at keeping them quiet), another one is changing nappies. The familiar, pungent smell lingers in the air for a while. Despite working here for a while, I still find baby poop pretty gross.

I pour the lukewarm formula into some bottles and place them in a tray for use of other nurses. That's just the first batch. I have 5 batches to make.

Then I feel my handphone vibrating in my pants pocket. It's Alice. She's calling to ask about her candles.

"Laura, when can I get my candles?"

"Today! Just give me a while, I'm a little caught up with work.", I tell her. At that moment a baby behind me starts bawling madly.

"Thanks, so I'll just wait for you to pass them to me and Mei?"

"Yeah sure, just wait for me to give them to you,"

"W-what? I can't hear you over the crying,"

"just wait for me to give them to you!,"

"I still ca-"

"JUST WAIT FOR ME TO GIVE THEM TO YOU.", I tell her for the third time, almost shouting. The crying from the babies is distracting.

I can hear an angry 'shush!' coming from a prominent senior nurse. She looks over at the baby she's holding, crying so much its red in the face. She turns back to me, glaring. As if to say 'don't talk loudly, you'll make them cry'. I nod and quickly turn back to what I was doing without saying a word, now I'm going red in the face but it's due to embarrassment. The older nurses look at me with disapproval, the younger ones sympathise with me.

I quickly glance behind me and everyone resumes their work. I discreetly take my phone out of my pocket and text Govert.

'Hi! You have the candles, right? 3 '

I press send and turn off the vibrations.

I was supposed to give Alice and Mei the candles yesterday, but it was all hands on deck yesterday with all those childbirths. I had to work really late last night! So I had to pass them to Govert.

✿*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧flashback *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧✿

"_Govert!,"I exclaimed, walking towards him with a heavy box in my hands, "good, you're here, take this box to your office, inside is a plastic bag and another box,"_

_He looked down at both boxes with confusion, "what am I supposed to do with this," he asked in his usual gruff voice._

_I giggled a little, "don't worry, I've got some instructions placed inside, just read them once you get back to your office!", he sighed a little. I understood why, he came all the way to block E where I work, then he'd have to walk all the way to his office in block A with this heavy box. I really wish I could drop it off at his office without him having to move anywhere. I thrust the box into his hands, as he takes it he stumbles a bit. If even a fully grown man like him isn't able to hold the box with ease, I wondered how I managed to take it to work. _

"_I have to go now, they need me in ward 5, take care!", I wave to him as I turn back and jog to the ward._

_I can hear him say 'bye' as I run off, and then I hear him shuffling away._

After a while, I check my phone. Govert replied my message.

Upon seeing his response, I'm confused at first, then I'm incredibly nervous.

**Govert's POV:**

It's Tuesday, which means I get to show up a little late for work. My shift only starts in the late morning today. Which is good. This week is going to be a week of either getting to work later, or knocking off earlier.

I take out my key and try to open my office door. I work with respiratory problems, unfortunately, those working with respiratory problems get shitty offices in block A. These offices are so old that we use keys to enter them, while everyone else uses electronic passes to enter theirs'.

Right now the door is being a bitch and it's not letting me open it. While my door might be old, it usually works fine. Maybe it's time has come.

I finally manage to enter my office after punching my door open. Some workers passing by looked at my funny.

I feel around for the light switch. The lights come on. The office is as usual. Same coat folded and placed on cupboard, same potted plants(unlike my colleagues, I actually like these plants. I've got some tulips from my garden at home sitting on my desk. Flowers usually don't provide companionship, but sometimes 'friendly' is the only the word to describe these things). But something's amiss.

Antonio's notebook is gone.

It was on my desk yesterday. On top of the sprawled out files, that were next to my jar of pens. The files are still sprawled out, the jar of pens are still where I left them. But the notebook's gone. I remember placing it on top of the files, so I'd remember what I would have to do with it the next day.

That notebook contains information about all accidents that have occurred this month. And Antonio needs it back so he can write down the details of the car crash the morning.

Shit, fuck, shit. God, I fucked up this time.

I start to look through everything, my books, my files, everything. There's no way it could just disappear like that. I promised that fucker I would return it to him today.

For the next 10 minutes I am rabidly going through all my shelves, flipping through every single book(truth is, if the notebook was in between the pages of another book, it would be easy to see. But a panicky person doesn't think about things like this). I even start to look through my sling bag, but it's not there either.

Then I receive a text from Laura.

'Hi! You have the candles, right? 3 '. She keeps using that weird face nowadays. I don't even know what emotion it's supposed to convey.

Right, the candles.

I stop my rummaging for a while and look under my desk where I last left them.

They're not there either.

SHIT, FUCK, SHIT. I fucked up even more.

_Flashback:_

"_Bye,", I mutter as she runs off to the wards. This box too damn heavy, I walk slowly with it._

_After I get off the elevator, I sigh. I've got to walk 5 blocks with this heavy thing. I'm pretty sure it's not just me, but this is going to be pretty taxing on my body. _

_As I walk block after block after block. I notice how everything is getting older(save for the meeting block). At some point modern glass shelter and wood panel floor of block E met with the black, hexagon shaped tiles of block D and it's concrete shelter. It's quite a stark contrast. The only thing that is the same is the backdrop: plants. I guess that's one thing that remains the same throughout is the strong presence of plants._

_Once I get to block A, I am greeted with the familiar old walls with their peeling paint and mouldy cracks. Management has given up on treating them. The floor is made of old reddish brown tiles. Everything's an eyesore._

_I reach my office, I almost put my box down to take my keys, but I realized that I hadn't locked my door in the first place._

_Once I nudge open my door, I see Antonio generally fucking around in my room. He's going in circles on my swivel chair and stops the circling by quickly propping his legs up on my desk, almost knocking over my small tulip plants. Thank God he didn't knock them over or I'd have to think of an appropriate way to murder him. Only a crime so heinous like knocking over well-tended to plants is worthy of such as heinous punishment. _

"_Hey Govert!", he greets me while waving his hands in the air. How could someone possibly still be so happy in this situation. I place the box on the floor and cough, before telling him what he exactly needed to do._

"_Get out,"_

"_Hahahha…c'mon let a fr-"_

"_Get out,", no way am I letting him sit around here, I approach him and drag my chair(with him still seated on it) away from my desk._

"_No seriously I m-"_

"_GET OUT,", I drag him out of my chair and throw him out. I quickly take my keys out of my pocket and quickly lock my door. I don't think I'll be taking chances anymore with unlocked doors._

_Later that day I get a phone call from him._

_His voice is extremely panicky and he keeps spouting nonsense about this notebook._

"_Ok, just look around your desk, you should find a black moleskin notebook, in it are the details of the accidents the paramedics dealt with,"_

_After some rummaging about my desk, I find it neatly sandwiched between two medical textbooks. And he's right. The details in this book are incredible. It records the casualties, the fatalities if any. Time, date, what treatment was given and some eyewitness accounts. I assumed that this was a backup copy of the official paramedic records given the fact that whoever was recording these incidents doodled along the margins of the paper._

"_Found it?", he anxiously asks._

"_Yeah, but why did you show up to my office with this?"_

"_Ahahha, long story short, I came back from an operation and I just felt like dicking around,"_

_I felt like being an ass and never giving it back to him, but this notebook contains some serious stuff and I'd probably get suspended if I didn't give it back._

"_I'll give it back tomorrow, take my word for it."_

"_no you don't understand I-"_

"_did I stutter."_

_His side of the call goes silent and I can only hear some faint chatter and footsteps._

"_fine…", he agrees reluctantly. Take this as your punishment for being such a fucker, Antonio._

'They arent there'. I hit send and expect the worst.

After a while she replies with 'what do you mean they arent there?'

It's exactly what it means, Laura. 'missing', I reply.

'help me find them!'

'I cant, shift is starting soon'. Besides, I'm already caught up with a missing notebook. She'll have to do this on her own.

**Laura's POV:**

I'm breaking out in a cold sweat now. My friends entrusted me with their money to buy them things, I can't tell them their purchases are missing! Behind me, I can hear more nurses entering the room. I suppose the matron called in more nurses to help care for the newborns. I guess they'll have to take over where I left off.

I run to a senior nurse, "Ma'am, I need to leave, I have some important errands to run,", she looks at me with her brows furrowed in irritation and then tells me in a stern voice that nothing is more important than caring for the newborns. "No, but this is a serious, personal problem, it's incredibly urgent!", I respond. She looks hesitant, but lets me go. I throw my green cardigan over my nurse's uniform and waste no time finding out what happened to those candles.

The heating of the ward changes to the cooling air conditioner of the hallways. I jog to the escalator, pondering about how I should I approach this situation.

If I talk to Mei or Alice directly, they'll freak out, and I don't want that. I figured that I should talk to those close to them. For Alice, I should talk to Arthur. For Mei, I should talk to Yao. The problem is who to approach first. Arthur's in block B, but Yao's in block C, which is faster to get to. Besides, Mei asked me to buy way more candles for her.

I head to the main entrance, and from there, I go to block C. Workers are always complaining about going through the alleyways to go from block to block or complain about the overhead bridges. But really, has nobody realized they could just go back to the main entrance, and get to the other blocks that way? Nobody does that, only Govert and I do. It's way more convenient, we can't believe nobody has realised that.

Block C looks just like block E, but with way more potted plants. They're irritating. I'll just leave it at that before I go into a tirade.

Mei has told me Yao's a specialist working with physical ailments. So, if I'm not wrong, he should be working in room 17. There're fewer patients today. You can usually find long queues at the counters, and you'll be able to find people of all types waiting for their turn.

Or maybe my assumptions are completely off (after all, I've only been here a few times).

I enter room 17. No passes required. This is pretty unusual for a newer block to not have any electronic passes required to open doors. I heard that doors can only be locked from inside. Most doctors just don't lock the doors for convenience.

What I see is definitely not Wang Yao's office. Instead I see Anneliese and Berwald checking on patients. "Um…is this Wang Yao's office?", I ask them. Then I realize that it's a stupid question to ask. Of course it's not, otherwise why would these two be here.

"Used to be, administration shifted his office to the next room.", she replies, her attention still fixed on her patient.

I thank her and go through the back passageway. When building this block, administration decided to connect rooms in a row with a back passageway that could also be used to store extra supplies and equipment and make things easier for everyone. This however, also makes things really easy for everyone to access all the rooms without permission.

I enter Yao's office and I am greeted with a weird sight.

The intern that works under him is crying and curled up in a corner. Yao tries to comfort him. At some point he looks at me and then looks back at the intern. This has been the weirdest 5 seconds of eye contact I've ever had. Something very bad must have happened

Asking Yao about candles would be awkward and rude. Besides, I couldn't see the box Mei's candles were in anywhere in the room. I left immediately.

As soon as I leave, I get a message from a colleague.

'The senior nurses want you to be back in 20 minutes, she says thats adequate time for you to finish whatever youre up to. Pls reply!'

And I do reply. I have no idea what to do right now. The intern and Yao are the only people I know that are close to Mei. I'm not sure whether to approach Yong Soo, they work in the same department but not in the same field. Are they even close? Or maybe I should talk to Kim.

Or maybe I should start finding out where Alice's candles are, I mean, she called me about them while Mei didn't. But Arthur's a psychiatrist and he has a weird, unpredictable schedule.

I have no idea what to do. I call Govert.

**Govert's POV:**

My patient leaves the room and I take out a cigarette from my pocket. Then I remember I can't smoke while on duty and Arthur borrowed my lighter earlier this morning. This sucks because when under stress, smoking is what calms me down.

My phone starts ringing and it's Laura that's calling me. She only calls when something really bad or something good happens. In this case, she either finds out where the candles went, or she has no idea what the fuck is going on.

"Hello,", I start the conversation.

"Govert, you need to help me out,"

"I can't, another patient is coming in 15 minutes,"

"You have to help me! Or at least give me some advice!"

"Do it yourself,", that's some good advice right there.

"I have to be back at the maternity ward in 20 minutes,"

"Then we'll just have to put this off, look, not only do I have to help you with this, I've also g-"

And in that moment, everything suddenly makes sense. There's a chance I'm wrong but I won't know until I try. My eyes widen. I think I've got it.

"Laura, standby, I'm going to hang up on you for now,"

I can hear her protests over the phone as I hang up. I go to my contacts list, and call up a certain fucker.

He picks up, I don't even greet him. I'm absolutely furious. "It was you wasn't it,"

**Antonio's POV:**

I'm hanging out with Gilbert and a few other guys in the canteen. Everyone's pretty tired from earlier this morning, but it was a good team effort. The canteen's slowly filling up, but it's still pretty empty. So we make as much noise as we want.

My phone rings and I pick it up, it's Govert calling me.

"Hi Govert!", I greet him cheerily, as usual!

"It was you wasn't it,", his tone is grave and serious.

"Aw, come on! Not even a greeting?"

"Don't change the subject, it was you who broke into my office and took your notebook back and stole the candles,"

I bit my lip. So he worked it out, huh? I knew it would be a matter of time before he'd get a clear picture of what happened. I excused myself from the table and went to a quieter corner of the canteen.

"How did you work it out?"

"It took me a while to figure this out, tell me exactly what you did,"

I took a deep breath. This was going to take a while

~~~Flashback~~~

_I need that notebook back NOW. It can't wait till the morning. Govert's pretty capable of giving it back now, he just had to choose not to. What if there was an accident tomorrow? I need that book to record down what happens, I'm pretty sure I would get into trouble even if I didn't have it for a while._

_This sounds pretty stupid, but I'd have to break into his office._

_He'd probably throw me off the building, but this is something I've got to risk._

_I know that he's knocking off earlier this week. So I would have time to bust into his workspace._

_Which is pretty easy. By 8pm, nobody walks down the corridor where he works, so I don't need to worry about anyone seeing me. He works in block A, which is the oldest block. The doors should be easy to kick down._

_In fact, I don't even need to kick them. I just used some force on the handle and it opened up for me._

_My notebook was conveniently placed in front of me. As if I was meant to be here and take it from him. I knew I should just leave immediately. But I was tempted to just mess around in his office. After looking through a few nooks and crannies(couldn't help myself), I notice the huge box he brought into this room earlier today. _

_On top of it was a note, it read:_

_Govert:_

_Hi! Remember the candle sale near my house I told you about a while ago? Well, this is the result of the sale! ^3^ These aren't for you though!(lol) They're for friends who asked me to buy them on their behalf. What I need you to do is to just keep them safe in your office. That's it! It's really simple, just keep them with you. Tomorrow I'll come around during the afternoon(or maybe earlier) and take them back. And just in case you were wondering, they're for Alice and Mei. If you're thinking about delivering them on my behalf, don't worry! I'll take care of this myself. Thank you!_

_Laura_

_Well, Govert might not deliver them but I will! Maybe doing her this favour will make her think of me better? And then I can hang out with her, Govert and Lovino more! Even though my conscience is telling me this a terrible idea, I go against my better judgement._

_I take the box along with my book, and leave his office._

_I open up the box. There's a plastic bag with a big candle and a pack of tea lights. Then there's another box within the box completely sealed up with tape. 'Mei' is written on the side in permanent marker. Meaning the other one must belong to Alice._

_I know that Mei works in the aesthetics department, and given that it's the newest department, it should be in the newest building, block E._

_I get lost in several alleyways and (almost) trip over several plants. I think everyone can agree on how annoying they are. There're probably about a million of them in every block. This isn't an exaggeration. _

_I finally arrive at block E and I take a look at their directory._

_Levels 1 and 2 are for expectant mothers and newborns. Level 3 is for chemotherapy._

_What's bothering me is that aesthetics isn't anywhere on this directory. Look, I'm a paramedic, I don't get to explore this hospital much._

_If it's not block E then what is it? I'm confused at this point and feel somewhat lost._

_I suppose I could bring this to someone close to her. Yao maybe?_

_I get to block C where he works, entering his office is pretty easy._

_All the rooms in his row are connected by a back passageway, a storeroom of sorts, and one of the rooms is a first aid supply room used by the paramedics. All paramedics, regardless what unit and what block they work in, get access to every supply room._

_So it's easy. Just get into the supply room, then go by the back passage and I'll end up in Yao's office._

_I do that and hell yes, Yao isn't here. I take out Mei's box from the bigger box and put it on his table._

_Now I have to deal with Alice's candles._

_I know she's the head nurse in the pediatrician department. But I can't just leave it at their front desk. What would they do with the candles._

_So I take it to Arthur Kirkland's office in block D. I manage to sneak in as he leaves and I put in the tea lights in the drawer under his desk._

_I leave quickly. Mission accomplished! Aw yes. I celebrate in my head, but then I realize that I still have the big candle .I smack my forehead and wonder how I managed to get myself in this predicament. _

_And he's back in his office, great._

_I start to think about who else I could bring this to. And then Alfred comes to mind._

_He works in the same department as Alice, and he's close to Arthur, so he should be close to Alice, right? Meh, makes sense to me!_

_I can't break into his office, so I just leave the candle outside his door, I hope that a janitor brings it in or something. Only later that night do I realize I could have done the same with Arthur, but what has been done has been done._

**Govert's POV:**

"Hello? Govert are you still there?", Antonio asks me after he told me the story of how our current predicament came to be.

My jaw has literally fallen to the ground. I can't believe what I've just heard. The stupidity has shattered my brain to pieces. Common sense no longer exists.

"Antonio, in that anecdote, you have reminded me why everyone thinks you're an idiot, I have never thought anyone could possibly have that little common sense, or no common sense,"

"Look, at least I fessed up!"

I groan. Yeah, at least he's honest. He barely put up an argument or tried to convince me he was innocent. However, I'm definitely not through with him.

"Where are you right now?"

"The canteen in block B,"

"good, just stay where you are and for Christ's sake, don't fuck around with this already terrible situation anymore and I won't beat you up."

He agrees. I hang up on him and then I start calling Laura. I think I know what to do to get this to work out.

Laura's POV:

After hanging up on me, if figured Govert knows exactly what I should do. It probably involves going somewhere, I prepare myself by getting to the main hall for convenience's sake.

The long awaited call comes and I immediately answer him.

"Laura, listen up, basically the person who's responsible for all of this is Antonio, you've got 10 minutes before your shift starts go to the canteen in block B and do whatever you want to him, just make sure you give him a slap for me,"

So it's Antonio, huh? Didn't think he'd do something like that.

"I'll take care of the rest."

"Aren't you having another patient soon?", I ask him.

"Don't worry, I'll retrieve everything once the appointment is over."

"Aww!", that really warmed my heart. Knowing that a good friend has got your back!

"Hurry up, time is running out on your side,"

Thanks, Govert, for letting me beat him up personally. Luckily for Antonio, I'm feeling merciful today so I'll just give him a slap. The emotional trauma and guilt of being capable of fucking things up so bad should be enough to take him down.

I throw the swing doors open (cowboy style). As the doors hit the walls, most workers stop their conversation and look up. Good, I'd want everyone to remember the time I served his ass to him . When I'm angry, I'm VERY angry. There's just no messing around when I'm pissed.

I storm into the canteen, Antonio is quaking in his boots and looks like he's going to piss himself. I quicken my pace and approach him, and savour the moment where he gets bitch slapped. I slapped him so hard, there's a red handprint forming. He looks at me with a weird expression. It's a cross between 'I've accepted the fact that you're going to serve me a buffet of whoop ass' and 'oh God don't hit me anymore'.

I can't forget the other slap I promised to give on Govert's behalf. I give him a backhanded slap on the other side. Usually backhanded slaps hurt less, but this one leaves a mark just as red. "That was for Govert,", I mutter. I turn my heel and quickly make my way out. My work here has been done.

Not long after I leave, I get a call from Mei. She talks a lot about wanting to know what happened, but details should be left to be discussed another time. I ask about her candles and she has them. Phew! That's one less thing for Govert to worry about, unless he works that fast! I text him about the information I received.

'Mei has her candles, you neednt worry abt that now!'

He replies quickly.

'roght'

'right'

Probably texting and running at the same time.

**Alfred's POV:**

"Take care!", I tell my patient and his father as they leave my office. This has been a really busy day. I raise my hands up and stretch. I would stand up, but there's no space to do so.

There's an aggressive knocking on my door. Seems like someone's in a hurry.

"Come in,", I say.

It's Govert, for a grown-ass man, he gets really tired after even a little running . Maybe it's because he's a heavy smoker. Which is pretty ironic considering he specialises in respiratory problems.

"Alfred, do you have a large candle in your office?"

"Oh…so it's yours! It's here,", I turn back and take the candle from a stack of papers, he steps into my office and takes it from his fingertips, "here you go!", I say as I pass it to him.

He's still panting and puffing, "y-yeah…thanks,"

It goes against my better judgement say it, but I tell him anyway, "dude, you should practice what you preach…y'know, quit smoking,"

His expression goes from grateful to irritated, "don't try me.", he turns and slams the door while running out.

Wow, rude.

**Arthur's POV:**

So there I was, just having a cup of tea while reading some e-mails and scheduling appointments, while appreciating the sweet scent of cinnamon that was wafting through the air. This would be a rare moment of peace in my office today, after lunch my schedule would be packed!

But the wonderful silence is interrupted by a brash knocking on my door.

"Coming,", I say, my voice is filled with lethargy.

I open my door and I see Govert, furiously panting and puffing. His brows are furrowed and he wipes his forehead. He's too young to be this exhausted by a slight jog from wherever he came from to my office. Must be the smoking. A doctor dealing with respiratory problems should know better.

"Before you say anything, you should really consider quitting,"

He looks up and glares at me, he straightens himself out and once again stands taller than me. He's still coughing heavily but is pretending that everything is alright. "I don't need your advice,", he starts to mutter to himself, "first Alfred, now Arthur, what is this?", so even Alfred thinks he should quit? Maybe the boy does have a smidge of common sense in him.

"Anyway,", he stops in his sentence to cough more, "I have two questions,", he stops in his sentence to cough some more, "first, did you find a pack of tea lights in the drawer under your desk? And second, where is my lighter?"

I take out his lighter and he opens up his palms, I drop it into his hands, "And for the tea lights, I've lit them up, can't you smell the cinnamon?"

Upon hearing that, Govert looks like he's going to have a mini panic attack. He pushes me aside. The sight of my candles placed before him shock him so much that his eyes widen and his pupils dilate. He whips around and delivers some unsettling news.

"Basically those candles actually belong to Alice and you shouldn't have lit them,"

"Shite"

"Exactly."

I start to pace up and down the room. He leans sideways against my armchair, I can feel his eyes watching me as I pace up and down. "What do you want me to do?", I scream as I abruptly turn to him.

He sighs, "the right thing to do would be to apologise to Alice,"

I look at the candles, "I suppose I'll just have to buy her new ones as an apology,"

**Alice's POV:**

"Ma'am, Arthur's at the counter with a man sporting frighteningly spiky hair,", a nurse tells me. I chuckle a bit. The man with 'frighteningly spiky hair' should be Govert. I walk towards the counter where I see the both of them awkwardly waiting. As I approach them, Arthur quickly greets me and a flurry of words come flying out of his mouth.

"Arthur, slow down will you,", I tell him. He clamps his hand over his mouth in an almost comical fashion.

It takes Govert to slowly explain the situation in order for me to understand it completely. Basically what I get is Antonio was being meddlesome and interfered with things.

The two in front of me won't stop apologising(but it's more of Arthur than Govert).

"It's alright!"

Arthur can see through me, he knows there's something else I want to say.

"Alice, is there anything else bothering you?"

I bite my lip, should I do this? Yes, definitely. "Would you be so kind as to tell me where Antonio is?"

**A/N: So hopefully that tells you what happened to the candles. Gdi spain**

**And that's only one morning in their hectic hospital!**

**There'll be many more stories come. Also, if chapters have the same title but are labeled as 1 and 2 (like this chapter and the one before it) it means that the events occurred in the same day. If a chapter has a different title, it means that the events in the chapter occur on another day, like the next chapter!**


	4. Chapter 4 : halloween anecdotes

A/N: aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

This chapter has took me such a long time. A part of me feels like it still isn't finished, but I can't type anymore, I don't have the will. Anyway, sorry for the long wait!

Also, it will probably be a while for the next chapter to come. I'll be very busy this holiday, so I won't hav much time to write. But this story will probably be back for Christmas and New Years.

Please note that:

Carlos- Cuba

Andrei-Romania

Therese- Fem! Norway

Monica- Fem!Germany

Julchen- Fem!Prussia

Irina- Ukraine

Emmett- Male!Belgium

And there's some contradictory information in this chapter and the previous ones. I will edit them in the future.

Chapter 4(the spooky series somewhat counts down to the days leading up to Halloween)

1 spooky

Hospital workers slowly streamed into the canteen of block B as lunch came, most of them prepared with food they have brought from home. Some were walking with friends, some came alone from their office, hoping to rendezvous later with friends working in other departments. Despite the large crowd, this however, was a small fraction of the workers. After all, this is a hospital, and workers simply don't halt their in work in helping the sickly just to attend a little get together.

Amongst the crowd were 3 not so very native New Yorkers, despite all 3 living in the city for years. Two of them aren't even American! One was from a small town the in the mid-west, another an Englishman, and the last a Frenchman, despite their differences, they are very close friends. Well, it really depends on your definition of the term 'close friends'.

Alfred's POV:

It's pretty hard to walk at normal pace in a flood of people, the three of us had to shuffle our way through the canteen. I keep walking straight until Arthur suddenly yanks on my collar (he does that to make it seem he's not as short as I keep saying he is. I don't really understand how being able to tug on my collar with ease is supposed to show how he isn't that short, and anyway, there IS a significant height difference!), he drags me to an empty table that Francis found.

I sit down and sigh. I almost dropped the box of subway sandwiches I brought for us to eat. Given my schedule, a bunch of homemade subway sandwiches was the best I can do.

"Help yourselves,", eyebrows says in a snooty voice as he places his burnt scones right in the middle of the table. He thinks his cooking is amazing. It's actually bland as hell. And when it's not bland, it's burnt.

"Go on!", he beckons us. Ew, no way am I having that nasty piece of shit.

Francis smirks. He takes out of his white cloth bag several large tubs of Tupperware. He uses what grace he has as a man (which is surprisingly, a lot) to open each container. The smell is incredibly good, and strong, it wafts from our table to the next. Everyone seated around us turns towards us. They're drooling all over themselves. Some people like Feliciano and Antonio come over and ask for some of the bruschetta and grilled meat he's prepared.

"Sure! Take what you want!", he starts laughing. It's not the slight chuckle he does when around others he's not familiar with. His real frenchy laugh, that he does when he's around his close friends or when he's freakin full of himself. In this case, the latter.

It's such a weird laugh. "Hon hon hon!", he exclaims while waving his hand around. How is this man even real? Are French people even real? Once someone said that he's so French that he can't be French (his birthday's 14th July, the FRENCH NATIONAL DAY), and that he's probably from Quebec. He went bat shit insane.

He laughs like his eyes are closed and he's facing upward, but I can tell he's actually glancing at Arthur to see him humiliated. Arthur isn't humiliated, he's furious.

Eventually, I can't help myself and I reach over to get some bruschetta, heck, he even brought hummus with him and I want some of that too.

He hits me on the back of my head. I don't even flinch. I know girls who hit better than eyebrows.

"Artie, what was that for?".

"Shut up,", he tells me. He huffs and turns to Francis (who's actually ok with me calling him frenchy), who's still French laughing his ass off.

"What is it Arthur?", he mocks him.

Eyebrows cleared his throat, "I actually had some faith in you, I didn't think you'd stoop that low,", he rolls his eyes, "looks like it's true, you can't be nice to Frenchmen,"

"I'm sorry I can't help that they all prefer my gourmet food to your burnt scones,", frenchy replied in a very un-sorry tone.

I've always heard of the stereotype that the French and British don't get along. I've always thought that it was a thing in the past and the stereotype was exaggerated. I didn't realize how true it was until the first time I saw these two argue. I don't really know if they hate each other because of where they come from, or if it's because of their personalities. Probably both.

This is why I don't understand why people refer to us as close friends. I guess friends are supposed to act like assholes towards each other. If that's the case then we are of the bestest of best friends ever. Because no group of homies in this hospital hate one another more than us five, if you count Yao and Ivan.

"Yo, guys stop fighting for a while, frenchy has better food, let's get this straight,"

"Ha! Alfred agrees with me!"

"Don't interfere with the conversation, Alfred!"

They spend the rest of the meal in silence glaring at each other. Arthur is eating his scones as if they were the best thing ever (is he acting? Does he really think his cooking is good?) and frenchy is doing the same with his.

Then eyebrows stops glaring at him for a while. A conversation at the table next to us has gotten his attention.

Yong Soo, Mei and Leon are seated there. Mei and Leon are keeping relatively quiet, Yong Soo is going on and on about a Korean urban legend. Now that Arthur has his attention on them, Francis starts to pay more attention to their conversation too.

"I don't get it,", Leon says.

"Ok, basically, you enter a lift, you go to the 10th floor but you don't get out, then go to the 2nd floor then 4th, then 6th, then 8th and finally go back to the 10th floor, at some point of time a woman you're unfamiliar with will come into the lift and ask you where you're going, DON'T talk to her or she'll take you away, when she gets off the lift, she'll ask you one last time where you're going, don't answer her or acknowledge her existence,"

"And what happens when you get off?"

"…well, everything is dark and looks reddish, you're the only person there, there isn't any other human like creature there, it's even said electronics don't work there! To get back, you do the same combinations of floors in reverse and you get back to the regular world, some people describe returning as a surreal feeling,"

"What if someone interrupts you on your ride to the other world?"

"It fails apparently,"

"There's no way this can work Yong,"

"I still don't get it,"

Francis turns back towards our table. He tuts a bit before saying, "I don't like how everyone starts blabbering on and on about urban legends when Halloween comes, I mean, no other time of the year does it occur, just Halloween,"

Arthur raises one of his incredibly thick eyebrows, "I don't see how it's a problem,"

"Well, take it as a pet peeve,"

"Why do you always find fault with everything?"

"Guys, slow down!", I try and stop them before this goes out of hand.

"You're the one who's always stirring up trouble, I think you know how we feel about you now,", Arthur snapped back.

"Hah, stay out of this, Alfred, mummy and daddy are talking,"

Arthur gave him a tight slap, "I don't even understand why we argue over every trivial matter! [1] **Francis, you're 40, I'm in my late thirties and Alfred over here is in his late twenties! We're all grown men**,"

"They say that men will forever be immature,", I add to the conversation.

"And anyway, how did our conversation lead to this?"

Arthur snaps back. This goes on for quite a while. When I first arrived in this hospital, I butted into all sorts of conversations that didn't involve me. It was good sometimes, people would think of me as enthusiastic and sociable, but lots of others thought of me as meddlesome and irritating. Consequences were pretty dire. Let's just say I try very hard to mind my own business now. I'm not even gonna try and stop them now.

This lift thing has got me thinking. Thinking about alternate realities and stuff. Maybe in this alternate world, I'll find some hellish things, or maybe some pleasant surprises. I kinda want to give it a shot. Anyone with common sense would not even think of it, but I've got none anyway. This is why people have often said I'm least likely to survive a horror movie.

"I think we should try it,", I interrupt their conversation.

Both Arthur and Francis turn to me at the same time.

"Try…the lift urban legend?"

"Idk man, sounds pretty interesting, and if we go in a group it won't be so freaky,"

"You're hinting that we follow you right,"

"Man, how'd you know,"

"It's so obvious,"

"C'mon! Give it a shot,"

"Never,"

We go back and forth for the rest of lunch, at least both Arthur and Francis and working together to convince me it's a dumb idea.

Roderich's POV:

I have the tendency to get lost incredibly easily.

Even in my place of work, the place of work being this hospital, I can't help but lose my way. There are simply too many blocks and too many alleyways. I get lost often, on a daily basis. This is why I usually don't do errands, and why I'm often kept in my office and have nurses bring things to me. You can either see me as a king or a prisoner in this situation.

However, now and then, there will come the time when I need to do some moving around on my own. In every one of these situations, I get lost. It's quite embarrassing, really.

I left the lunch area earlier to get back to work. I really would have wanted to stay behind longer, but there's work to be done. Unfortunately, I am in a bit of a predicament now.

Thankfully, I have my dear friend Elizaveta Hedevary to help me out when the time comes. To be honest, she's more than a dear friend, but my relationship with her is rather complicated. I would rather not go into details. Regardless, I can always give her a call and ask her for help. She always responds in that cheery tone of hers. Sometimes I feel bad about always asking her for help, and that she is putting up a façade to keep me happy. And that I am using her, but if not for her, I would always be lost.

I take out my phone from my pocket and give Elizaveta a call.

I start the conversation by telling her about my predicament. I know that she is one of the people who did not show up for lunch today, meaning she is setting her patient aside to converse with me. A part of me feels guilty, but I need to get back to work as well!

She starts to ask me which block I'm in and describe my enviorment. I tell her I'm in block B, and that the walls are a peachy colour and the ceiling and tiles on the floor are white. She giggles to herself in a very feminine way. A part of me wants to tell Elizaveta to stop being something she is not. Everyone in this hospital knows she is really one of the rowdiest women, she only behaves in a very proper, girly fashion around me. She's not fooling anyone.

She proceeds to tell me that I am in block B2, she tells me she does not blame me for not knowing of the blocks existence, a lot of people do not know of this block built exclusively for wards. I bite my lip. 'I don't blame you' is a phrase Elizaveta uses around me all the time, it sometimes feels as if she owes me something.

I tell her that right in front of me is a barricaded corridor. Her tone is now serious, but still pretty polite. She tells me to get away from it as much as possible. She tells me to text her my current location, and that she will text me instructions to get back to my office from my new location.

I wait around one of the benches. This area is significantly noisier than the last.

I start to think about the size of this hospital. It is very big, it is a daily occurrence for staff to get lost. A map of this hospital would be too much too handle, no matter how hard they'd try to get everything to scale, details will be missed.

What I know is that there are five blocks, A, B, C, D and E, that are connected by a complex system of alleyways and bridges. There are also two atriums, where meetings are held. One for department meetings, and the other one has a big event hall and another hall with seats for official staff meetings where the whole hospital is concerned. And now there is apparently a block specifically for wards. Now that I think about it, none of the main blocks have any wards, save for block E with maternity wards. I do not think that one block of wards is enough to sustain the whole hospital. There must be more blocks around.

After a while of pondering, I finally receive Elizaveta's message which is very long and detailed, hopefully this will get me back to work on time.

Fortunately the instructions manage to lead me back to my office. There have been occasions where they made me even more lost.

Halfway through, I sit down at a bench and take a breather. I don't do well walking long distances. My phone vibrates as I have received another lengthy text from Elizaveta.

'Hey Roddy! I figured I should do some explaining about why you cant hang around the barricaded wards in B2. So there was incident that happened a long time ago. That ward was a ward for patients who suffered from severe physical wounds, like knife slashes, broken body parts, burnt skin. Most of these patients were victims of violent events in their home or outside, so as you can imagine, a lot of them held grudges and were really angry! Lots of these patients would die not just from the physical wounds, but from other things within the body like internal bleeding. It didn't take long for that ward to be known for angry ghosts. There have been many reports of patients and medical staff being disturbed. To cut everything short, I'll just tell you a nurse almost had an arm amputated because of a ghost. Management shut the ward down, Administration made announcements telling staff that the ward was shut down for renovation. But its kinda been almost two decades and nothing has happened to the wards. Anyway, just don't go anywhere near the wards. The old nurses who told me about the events also told me that there hasn't been an incident there since the ward was closed down. But its better to be safe then sorry!'

I don't really believe in all of these supernatural things. I'll simply refuse to enter the ward because Administration cordoned it off. Well, it really was Management who cordoned it off. Staff often make the mistake of using Management and Administration interchangeably. They, in actuality, do very different things in this hospital, you can tell the difference because Administration hates all the potted plants, Management is the one that orders all the plants. Management is the one that decides to build gardens, Administration is the one that raises funds for their construction. You can obviously tell who holds a higher position here.

Head of Management is retiring though. Everyone is praying the new head will get rid of all these plants, I'm no exception. Head of Administration, however, isn't going anywhere. They say he will die holding this position. Some of us around here call him Legolas because of his long blonde hair. (he grew it out after he got his position, there would be no chance of an unemployed young man getting work here with long hair.) He has Ludwig and Gilbert's surname, and even resembles Ludwig, but the Beilschmidt brothers swear they have no relation to him.

I go back to the message with instructions that lead me to my office, I'll have enough time to get there.

Right after I get off the bench, I bump into Alfred, Francis, Arthur and Matthew. Matthew is squirming and trying to break free of Alfred's grip. The latter is happily dragging him. Arthur and Francis look like they are trying very hard not to bicker.

"Roderich! Hi!", Francis greets me with his usual cheer. I wave back silently in response.

"Hi…", Matthew mutters awkwardly. I give him a nod.

"I'll be making my way,", I tell them and squeeze past Arthur. I can hear Alfred and Francis saying 'bye!' as I walk away.

Francis's POV:

"No, no, no, we aren't doing it,", Arthur tells Alfred again as we walk out of block B's canteen.

We have spent the entire lunch hearing Alfred trying to convince us that trying out Yong Soo's lift myth would be alright. Any human being with some common sense wouldn't try it. That was one thing we told Alfred, he told us in response that he doesn't have any common sense. We know Alfred, we know.

"Pleeeeeeease, c'mon!"

"No,"

"Well, look,"

Alfred suddenly pulls all of us together in a circle. The boy's got a lot of strength for someone who only eats fast food.

"Arthur, we, as your closest friends, know that you can do magic, there's a part of me that's pretty fuckin' certain you would actually like to try this out, and if we get into trouble, I'm sure you could just magic us the fuck out of there, there isn't a reason for you guys to object,"

"There is,", I tell him. "First, this is really dumb, second, in those horror movies, it's a bad idea to go in a group of three,"

Alfred suddenly keeps quiet, then his eyes widen. He shoves the two of us aside and is maniacally running back into the canteen. We hear a lot of screaming coming from Alfred amongst the noise in the canteen. From where Arthur and I are standing, we can see some staff members turning to face them.

It doesn't take long for Alfred to come out from the canteen, dragging a helpless Matthew behind him.

Matthew's POV:

"ALFRED WHAT ARE YOU DOING"  
"SHUT UP AND JUST FOLLOW ME"

"ALFRED PLEASE STOP WHAT YOU'RE DOING RIGHT NOW,"

"I DON'T CAREEEEEE,"

I was just minding my business, sitting down and having a nice lunch with Carlos, when Alfred showed up out of nowhere and dragged me out of my seat. He moved so fast neither Carlos or I had the chance to react.

He dragged me out of my seat so fast I couldn't even get up on my feet properly, my legs are now twisted after trying hard to kick myself away from him. My arms however, aren't giving up. I'm trying hard to writhe my way out of his iron grip. I can't believe how much strength this guy has. There was one time Arthur called us over to help him fix his car. Alfred could lift it without problem.

He grabs the back of my shirt and pulls me in front of him. "Here! Look! A fourth person! Wow!", he says as if I'm some sort of wild animal he killed that he shows off to his friends.

"Tell me what you are doing or so help me,", I say.

Arthur clears his throat, "Well, to put it simply, Alfred wants to try out an urban legend,"

"Now help me,"

Francis rolls his eyes, "Alfred, let Matthieu go,"

"Francis stop calling Matthew by the French variation of his name! He might be Canadian but he isn't French Canadian!"

"Shut up! I call people I like by the French variation of their names,"

Alfred suddenly lets go of me. "Woah, Francis, I know you hate Arthur but you like me don't you? I mean…", he can feel that I'm trying to escape. He pulls me back into his grip.

Francis sighs. "Alfred, the French version of your name, is Alfred, it's spelt the same but pronounced differently,"

"OH THANK GOD FRANCIS HATES ME OTHERWISE HE'D BE CALL-"

"SHUT UP ARTHUR, THE FRENCH VERSION OF ARTHUR IS ARTHUR SO SHUT UP"

"Guys stop! The point is, we've got a fourth person, so let's go,"

"I'm getting out of here,"

"NO MATT, YOU STAY,"

Alfred drags me as Arthur and Francis tell me about the urban legend and what exactly happens. In between telling me about what happens, Arthur manages to slip in remarks to tell Alfred that he is being incredibly idiotic or say that we're all supposed to be working now.

To which Alfred responds with, "Arthur, your next appointment is at 2pm, Francis, your next appointment is at 3pm, and if this is dumb, then it won't work,"

"I have work,"

"Matt shut up we're so close I know your schedule your next shift is at 5pm you motherfucker don't try and mess with me when it comes to things like this,"

"Alfred where are we even going,"

"To a lift,"

We turn a corner and it causes my legs to twist. Stop legs. Alfred pulls me up and then switches his grip so he can push me by holding me in front of him. I don't fight back. I have accepted the inevitable fate that we might all be sent to hell via a lift.

As I ponder about what hell will be like, we bump into Roderich. I figured he's probably lost. Everyone knows he has a horrible sense of direction.

"Roderich! Hi!", Francis greets him. It certainly doesn't look like it, but Francis and Roderich have some bad blood between them. I think it has something to do with the fact that Francis is friends with Antonio and Gilbert. It feels like he and Elizaveta are at war with them. Especially Gilbert. Francis, however, tries to be nice to them, but it's hard to be nice to Elizaveta when she despises you.

"Hi…", I mutter. I try to sound casual, but I always end up sounding nervous.

We finally reach one of the lifts.

"I remember Yong Soo saying that it won't work if other people come in halfway during your journey, so I picked I quieter lift to go to! Remember, a woman will come in at some point of time and ask us where we are going, IGNORE HER AT ALL COSTS!", Alfred gave his little speech filled with gusto.

"Man, he can do things when puts his heart to it,", I could hear Francis muttering to himself.

"Lets go!"

"I'm backing out,"

"Hell no!", Alfred shouted. He used his free hand to drag Arthur into the lift.

Alfred pressed the button to the tenth floor. This is a thing. We are actually doing this.

The doors opened. Nobody came in. Alfred smirked to himself, things were going according to his plans. He looked like he was going to piss himself out of excitedness. Arthur looked like he was having an existential crisis and Francis was trying his hardest to look relaxed. For me, I was just hoping that our journey would be interrupted by someone. Anyone. Except that creepy woman who's supposed to take us away.

For the next floor, there wasn't anybody coming in either. Everyone but Alfred was freaking out. I'm pretty sure Francis was praying.

At the 6th floor, a middle aged woman came in. She was wearing a knit cardigan over her plain blouse and long plain skirt. She looked very ordinary. Nothing about her stood out. We hadn't seen her around before, she could either be a blessing or our worse nightmare.

She saw that the lift was on it's way to the eighth floor , which apparently was where she was going as she didn't press any buttons. We all stood stiff and straight. Alfred stared at me. I could read his mind. 'Don't you dare talk to her' was what it said.

We could hear her clear her throat. Oh shit. Oh shit shit shit.

"So, where are you boys going?"

We all just glanced at each other, to make sure we were all in check. Alfred, however wasn't glancing. He was staring us down.

We could hear her sigh, she slouched her shoulders. That moment in the elevator was the most intense thing I've ever experienced.

Finally, the lift came to a stop, I could hear Arthur behind my heaving a small sigh of relief. As the woman stepped out of the lift, she said, "so, am I not gonna know where you're going?". I immediately looked down and pretended I didn't notice her. When we heard her footsteps get smaller and the lift door closing, everyone sighed very loudly. I didn't know it was possible to feel this relieved.

The lift started going up to the tenth floor. Yes, this was what we were waiting for. The lift doors opened.

Alfred suddenly grabbed my arm, "link arms,", he said. We complied. We inched our way out of the lift and into this other dimension.

Everything looked the same. Same potted plants, same rooms, same equipment. But there were no people, there was nobody. To make things creepier, the lights had a reddish tinge.

We were all stumbling a little as we couldn't exactly keep up with one another. "HELLO! IS ANYONE THERE?", Alfred screamed. Obviously, there wasn't anyone hanging around here. So Alfred's voice came echoing back to him. The only other sound was the clicking of Francis's shoes. (They're made of Spanish leather and they have a low sensible heel. Francis polishes them the day before he wears them. Yes, he plans what to wear on which day)

We keep walking.

"You know, we should probably split up and investigate,", Alfred said.

Arthur pinched Alfred's back and he yelped in pain. "That's how everyone in horror stories die! We're sticking together,'

"Wow, Artie, I didn't know you were into that kind of stuff,"

"Shut up!"

We walked some more.

"Wait,", Arthur suddenly said.

You see, as Arthur's closest friends, we know that he does all the weird magic shit at his home. It's just that we make the effort to not involve ourselves in things like this. But Arthur knows when evil spirits are hanging around. So when Arthur knows when something is wrong, shit's going down.

Arthur "steers" us towards the receptionists desk. It's amazing how it almost looks like a receptionist was there a while ago. The papers are left all over the place, there're pens in a container and they aren't just all the same. You've got the cheap plastic pens, a fountain pen, some pens with cartoon characters on them, even a 'celebrate our 150th anniversary pen' the hospital gave the workers few years back. (I've got that pen in my pencil case, still works well.) There's even a half-finished coffee on the desk.

Arthur slips out of Alfred and my grip. He walks towards the counter. He snaps his fingers and the lighting in the room instantly becomes the regular lighting we are used to in our hospital.

"Come out already,"

"Hello!", we heard a voice shout behind us.

Everyone screamed and went wild. I backed off and turned around. It was…Arthur?

He resembled Arthur a lot, in terms of facial features and body type. But he dressed badly. I mean, while Arthur's dress sense is considered bland, it's still acceptable and it fits him. This man however, was wearing a pale blue sweater vest and a cotton candy pink dress shirt with a bright blue bow tie. His pants were grey and exactly the length of his legs, he was jumping around a lot and when he did we could see his high socks. Another thing about the pants, while Arthur's are somewhat tight fitting, this man's didn't seem to cling on to him in any way and looked perfectly tailored.

For the face: He had Arthur's bushy brows, but he didn't have the dark blonde hair or green eyes. His hair was a strawberry blonde. But not the strawberry blonde that Andrei is, you could almost say his hair was a light pink with a tinge of brown. His eyes were a bright blue. They were so bright and cheery. Too bright and cheery. Too bright and cheery that it felt like the main light source of the room were his eyes. The energy contained within them was too much I felt freaked out. They made me want to throw up blood, rainbows and sunshine.

"Hello, hello! Good day to you and you and you,", His voice was sickeningly sweet and fatherly. He turned to Arthur, "And you!". He rushed over to Arthur and stood extremely close to his face, "I never thought I'd meet you, after years of working in this hospital, finally, my alternate self stands before me!"

Arthur turned to us, "don't ask any questions about the alternate world, just go with it,"

He turned back to this man, "what's your name?"

The stranger grabbed Arthur's right hand with both of his hands and started shaking it madly, "Arthur! Very nice to meet you, love,"

Our Arthur raised an eyebrow, "if you are my Alternate self, why do we have the same name?"

The other Arthur raised an equally thick brow, "I don't know! But whatever it is, I'm Arthur,"

"No, I'm Arthur,"

"No, no, love, I'M Arthur,"

Our Arthur pulled his hand out of the handshake, "Did your parents almost name you James?"

The other Arthur nodded his head, "…no, they almost named me Oliver though! It's my middle name", he pulled out a worker's pass to prove it. Their passes looked like ours, except everything had a red colour scheme instead blue like ours. Another big difference was that in his picture, other Arthur was smiling brightly. Our Arthur looks disgruntled in his.

"Can I call you Oliver, instead?", our Arthur asked.

"How about, I call YOU James instead?"

"Not a chance,"

They argued for a while before playing rock paper scissors. It was a surreal experience.

Our Arthur won which means that from this point on, other Arthur will be called Oliver.

"Oh, alright, I'll be Oliver and play nice since you are the guests in our universe,", he adjusted his bow tie, "come! I'll show you around,"

"No need, we'll just sit down and have tea, you must have some of it around here"

Oliver looked shocked. "Tea? No, coffee is the way to go!"

Arthur looked somewhat enraged, "you're English aren't you? Right now you're speaking with a very strong Manchester accent, that's where you're from aren't you?"

"Oh, yes! You are speaking with the accent of a Londoner, and you like tea, ha! You're being your stereotype, and please, don't judge me for liking coffee, it's a personal preference,"

"Nevermind,", Arthur sat down on one the waiting benches for the patients, he beckoned for us to come over.

"So, mind telling us why no one's here?"

"It's lunch time! The food in the canteens here are vile, we all have lunch out, nobody wants to eat here,"

Arthur showed Oliver his watch, "the time on my watch is 12:13pm, which was five minutes ago, and you can see the second hand is not working, timepieces don't work here and I don't see any clocks around,", Arthur narrowed his eyes, "how would you know it's lunch time?"

"We just eat whenever we're hungry!"

It was at that point where we all realized that this alternate universe could be described as whimsical weird than an unsettling creepy. This is a world where time does not exist and people just go around doing what they want.

Oliver starts telling us about alternate Alfred, alternate Francis and my alternate self. We don't exactly sound anything like ourselves. Alfred and Francis absolutely detest the way their counterparts sound (Alfred can't imagine himself as a vegan), I, however, think my counterpart sounds really cool! He sounds like the typical tough Canadian. That was something I've wanted to be for a long time.

I'm relatively ignored the entire time. Alfred, Arthur and Francis's presence is shadowing over mine. So I walk around. I know this sounds like a relatively risky thing to do, given that I'm basically in an alternate universe. But, hey, this hospital is basically the exact same as the one in the universe I'm from, so it shouldn't be a problem navigating through this hospital.

I start to wonder about the patients here. I mean, the staff might be out, but the bedridden patients must be in.

As I walk around more, I notice that the main difference between this hospital and ours, is that instead of having potted plants everywhere, this hospital has floormaps and directories everywhere. Which is pretty helpful. Considering that while the structure is the same, some rooms have different functions. For example: the vaccine room in our hospital is a chemotherapy room for them. Same room, different purposes.

But the wards are the same. I the nearest ward to my original location was the old diabetic ward. (Like us, they have separate blocks for wards, unlike us they state that they are old wards)

I step into the ward, it looks just like ours when the lights are off. In fact, the lights look broken. Plus, the curtains are drawn, making the room even darker. Aside from that, everything else looks the same. The same green wallpaper and the same grey floor.

But something is amiss, I don't see flowers or magazines that visitors would bring to the patients, I don't even see IUDs for the patients. I don't see flasks carrying water for these patients. These patients all look like they're living corpses, just barely alive. I wished I had something to give to them.

I leave immediately. Being in the room made me feel upset

Something's wrong with this hospital. No staff, timepieces that don't work, too many directories. And now there're miserable patients. I can't exactly put my finger down on what hidden secrets this place might have, and I don't want to know anyway!

When I return I find a Arthur and Francis bickering, while Francis is enjoying some pleasant looking chocolate cupcakes, whose pleasant qualities are cancelled out by the toxic appearance of the pink icing. Francis doesn't usually eat things with a lot of food colour, or like them very much, but he's enjoying the cupcakes wholeheartedly. When Francis says food is good, it is VERY good.

Alfred runs up to me, "dude! Where were you?"

"Walked around a bit,", I told him. I tried hard to keep my cool, "are we leaving soon or…?", I wanted us to leave soon. I NEEDED us to leave soon.

"Yup! Aye, Artie, Francis! We're leaving!"

The three of them on the other side of the room turned their attention to us. Francis still eating the cupcakes.

"Goodbye you lot!", Oliver bid farewell to us, it would be the last time we'd see him.

Once we step back in the lift, the lights of the hospital return to the dim red colour they originally were. And the lift doors close. Arthur already looks like he's missing a close friend, Alfred's suggesting we visit them again, at a time when more people are around. Francis is still eating.

But there's something different in the way Francis is eating. Arthur and Alfred are noticing it too. Francis doesn't usually eat something as if he's a starving man, even when he is one, he maintains his classy appearance and etiquette. He eats in a very clean way, right now he's got icing and crumbs all over the side of his mouth, its even got on some of his stubble. He's licking his fingers after ever cupcake he is, Francis doesn't do that, he wipes his hands.

"Dude…you alright?", Alfred asks him. Arthur is more focused on the floor combinations so that we can get back to where we belong.

Alfred gets closer to Francis to observe him better. Francis just shrinks into a corner.

"Can this lift go faster?", Arthur complains as he jams some buttons. He obviously wants Francis to get checked out too.

Then I realize something, "guys, I know you want to get him some help, but, Alfred, didn't you go to med school?", I'm a nurse working with eye problems, Arthur's a psychiatrist. Both of us haven't been to med school as you imagine it. But Alfred, being a pediatrician, should have.

"Look, kids' health and adults health are two very different things, we need to get him to a GP, like Braginsky, although I kinda don't trust him, we'll find someone else,"

At long last, the lift door swing open.

Alfred walks out first, "c'mon, frenchie, you need help,"

Arthur follows him, but I stay in the lift, Francis isn't moving.

He looks like he's going to vomit. He clenches his knuckles till their white, before flinging his arms and hands all over the place, madly spazzing. He almost punches me in a fit. He screams a lot, and even while falling to the floor and rolling around, his screams just get louder. I'm dumbstruck, I don't know what to do. Alfred and Arthur are standing right outside the lift now, saying things like "GET OUT OF THERE" and "FUCK SHIT SEND HIM TO THE ER". A crowd is forming outside the lift.

I am never going back to that alternate universe.

Feliciano's POV:

"Hey kiku!", I say as I open the door to his office. He couldn't come to lunch today with the rest of us. As a neurologist, he has a busy schedule. But there was no way I was going to let him have none of the food today. In the container I brought with me to his office, there was some of the bruschetta Francis made, some of I canrt think of anything right now jfc and some of the pasta brought from home.

Kiku was surrounded by a mess of paperwork, presumably results from brain scans.

"Hello, Feliciano,", polite as always! He used to address us with Japanese honorifics, but he has since stopped.

I sit down on the chair meant for his patients. And placed the container on top of all the documents.

He takes it and sets it aside.

"Thank you, Feliciano,", he then reaches under his desk and pulls out his lunchbox and tumbler. Well, should have known that he would have brought his own food if he was having lunch later. At least I know he'll be able to have some of what everyone else had.

He eats his meal in silence and I don't say anything. He's one of the people I don't mind just being with in silence. It's comforting to some extent. So I just glance around his office. He's got all this equipment to perform brain scans and filing cabinets filled with scan results.

Then my vision goes psychedelic. The colours are brighter than they have ever been. I cover my eyes. A part of me feels that this headache would be cured immediately if I had brought my water bottle. I look at Kiku and oddly enough he's having a headache too.

"Hey… Kiku, iH E̢ ́L P

̢Felì ̴

it's̢ m̧e̵

F͞rancįs̸

h̷el͡p

͝h ͢e͜ l͏ ̴p̶

The headache was suddenly gone. I don't know why, but we both instinctively ran to open the door.

What we saw were some paramedics taking Francis in a stretcher to the ER.

Alfred's POV:

"Right, so I won't prescribe that", I say as my patient and her father. I'm trying pretty hard to act as if everything is going as per normal, but it's kinda hard when just a few hours ago, one of your friends has been rushed to the ER after eating poisonous cupcakes from an alternate universe. Today's been a terrifyingly weird day.

"Daddy, can I have one of those?", she points to the furbies sitting on the shelf next to the height chart and weighing scale. Ugh, furbies. They not only penetrate into the deepest darkest parts of your soul, these particular furbies bring back bad memories.

"You can take all of them,", I remark as I continue writing. (or scribbling, like most doctors, my handwriting is pretty bad)

I can hear her gasp, "really?"

"Sure!", yes, take all of them away. Get them out of my office.

She starts excitedly talking to her dad about bringing them back home. He keeps telling her she can get any other toy, just not a furby. Meanwhile, my mind has taken me back to dark place. Ok, not really dark, I'm just reminiscing about the charity fair last year.

" _Jones, think you could help out at the charity fair next Saturday?"_

"_The charity fair?", from what I remember, only nurses, part time staff and youth volunteers could help out at the fair. The fair is where the hospital makes an attempt to raise funds for new equipment and facilities, and donates some money to charity of the staff's choice. So it's not really 100% percent charity. Staff usually collect stuff they don't want and sell it off, or Management gets the staff cook stuff, and sell them off as snacks. Or was it Administration that gets us to do that…geez, they're both the same to me!_

"_Yeah, the charity fair, c'mon, it'll be fun,", my superior is standing outside my office. My superiors don't like to come into my office. It's too squeezy for them._

"_But…doctors don't participate in the fair,"_

"_well, young doctors like you participate all the time, it's a good way to help the community! All of us around here have done it at least once! And I heard they're short of people this year, you like this kinda thing don't ya?"_

"_What if there're too many patients?"_

"_Don't worry about them patients, we old geezers can take care of them,"_

_Well, it does sound fun, and I can help our hospital and a charity while at it! Besides, my superiors are more than capable of handling a large crowd of patients._

"_Sign me up!"_

"_That's the spirit, I knew I could count on you! You be there at that marquee down the street,", he left at this point. Even though the door was closed, I could hear him talking to himself. Little do they know sound passes really easily through these doors._

_He laughed to himself, "stupid boy, heh, have fun Jones,"_

_At this point of time I knew I did something wrong._

I was so right about being wrong.

"_You a doctor?"_

"_Yes…?"_

"_Then why you on this list?"_

_I raise my eyebrows in confusion. "My superior put me down,"_

_The administrative staff start bickering among themselves. It goes along the lines of 'are you sure he's serious?', 'does anyone have any idea what they're doing?' and 'it was his GODDAMNED SUPERIOR'. There was the time they got me to sort out the paper work for the entire department, and when they got me to work extra hours for no reason and now they're making me work at this fair Yeah, I'm never trusting my bosses again._

_The woman talking to me turns angrily back to me. Her insanely curly black hair bounces as she does so._

"_You, you…you go to booth 23, sell as many toys as you can,"_

_The toy booth? Wasn't that at booth 15, where it usually is?_

"_Sure…thanks,", I take one of the floormaps from the table the woman's sitting at. I make my way from the entrance to the inside of the marquee. At this time, there were only stallholders setting up their booths, and some really early visitors. The floormap labels where all the booths are from the main entrance. And the map labels everything each booth sells, except for 23. A part of me is feeling bad about this. _

_Booth 23 stuck out like a sore thumb among the rest, but at the same time, had qualities that enabled it to be completely ignored. It was unlike all the other booths that were decorated with plenty of cardboard signs and fairy lights, and had colourful table cloths laid on their tables. Booth 23 didn't have any decorations, no table cloths. Instead all I got was a bare wooden table with a bunch of toys on it, the legs of the table were made of metal, and were rusting away. The wooden top of the table was horribly chipped away._

_The toys on the table were a random bunch. I guess the organizing committee thought that no one would buy them, so they just chucked them aside. The mix included some old Gameboys, some stuffed toys that needed a wash, a tricycle missing a wheel, and furbies. Like 5 of them._

_There's a fold out chair placed next to the table. I open it up. A folded piece of notebook paper drops out as I do. I pick it up and read it. It reads, "whoever is taking care of this booth, good luck. You'll need it"._

Let's just say I managed to sell off some of the stuff, all the furbies were left behind. I had never owned a furby before, but I've heard bad things about them on the internet.

Man, I hate furbies. More than all the potted plants around this place.

These furbies have done several creepy things. They sometimes move around the place when I'm not paying attention to them. They sometimes say weird creepy stuff at random times. There was one time I locked them up in a cabinet, and I told the janitor not to take them out. The next day, I found them on my desk.

I've been trying my hardest to dispose of them but they keep showing up. I guess I'll just have to make do with these little spawn of the devil in my office.

**Andrei's POV:**

I sip my coffee out of my thermos flask, I can't eat dinner, there was too much food at the Halloween pot luck this afternoon. This coffee I'm drinking isn't from tiny room that my bosses call the "lounging area", the coffee here is vile. It's the really cheap instant kind that has an artificial taste to it. You don't need to taste it to know it's not popular with the workers here, there're 4 unopened bags tightly packed together on the tiny shelf next to my left, slowly rotting away. No way am I drinking that, this coffee is from home and made with QUALITY coffee beans.

Anyway, this room is hardly a "lounging area". It's just for us to stop by and drink our beverages. Drinking isn't allowed in the workspace, no sir-ee, when working we have to be EXTREMELY clean. Even the smell of disinfectant wafts around in this well lit room. On my left is a potted plant. This hospital really has a thing for plants. Maybe I could have something from this room for dinner, oh wait, I can't. This room is supposed to have some snacks in the cupboards, but there's absolutely nothing in them. I don't like how this room can have a plant but not snacks.

I can see a colleague approaching the room. The door to this room has a transparent window and blinds that can cover it when privacy is wanted. Nobody closes the blinds because the others outside will always make inappropriate jokes about you once you come out.

He partially opens the door, sticks he head through the narrow opening and tells me, "Andrei , we need you to do some blood separation,", he then steps into the room with his thermos flask. There isn't anyone here who doesn't bring a thermos flask of hot coffee to work here.

"Yeah, sure,", I screw the lid onto my flask and then put my face mask back on.

"Just don't help yourself too much,", he says jokingly. I roll my eyes.

Here's the thing about me, I look like a vampire.

I've got relatively fair skin. My eyes are a reddish brown, unfortunately for me, they appear a dark red under most lighting. Plus, my canines are really sharp, it looks as if I got fangs. However, I don't have the dark hair (I'm blonde) and I don't spend all my time brooding. But that fact that I'm of Romanian descent makes up for that.

And with Halloween coming soon, people are telling me things like 'you'll find your calling as Dracula's descendant'. They're also calling me Vlad Jr. as a joke. And it isn't even funny, just call me Andrei like you always do you little shits.

I'm filtering out the white blood cells from the red blood cells. It's a pretty boring process, but it's gotta be done.

"What do you think?", Therese asks me.

"Think of what?"

"Of our hospital being too enthusiastic about Halloween,", she asks me as she chucks some bags of plasma into the freezer. Our hospital is in general, too enthusiastic about festivities.

"I guess…it's good?"

Lukas walks into the office at this moment, "Therese, did you tell him about what happened in the summer of 1996?", Lukas turns to her and asks her in his monotonous voice. He's the surgeon they always send to check up on what blood they have for blood transfusions.

"No, you want me to,"

"Yes,"

What happened in the summer of 1996? Do I want to know? I'm falling into a state of existential crisis as the both of them gaze into the deepest darkest depths of my soul with their emotionless, blue eyes that are capable of leading you down the darkest voids. But seriously, I do wanna know what happened in the summer of 1996.

Therese clears her throat, it's not as if she's going to sound anymore clear, the face mask she's wearing will definitely muffle her voice. "Let's begin,"

_The only noise that accompanied me in the stuffy room was the rattling of the old air conditioner. The fact that it was old meant that it was inefficient at its job: cooling the workers in this room._

_But there were no workers, only A worker. The worker being me. Everyone had took leave to go for tropical vacations of some sort, leaving me behind to work in this lab alone. I wiped the sweat off my forehead, and continued testing for antibodies in the blood. I have to wear this cap and mask for santitary purposes._

_I stop for a while and go to the filtering devices, the bag of plasma is almost full. I stop the flow, take off the tube and seal the bag. I pick up the bag and then carry it with both hands to the freezer. I quicken my pace to get there, once I swing the doors open, the cold air blasts in my face. I embrace it for a few seconds and then put the bag of plasma in. There's always a weird smell that accompanies the cold air._

_I walk back to my desk, I notice that the time on the grandfather clock reads 12:03 am. Wow, it's that late already? At least I can go home soon, just need to finish up this testing and then clear up this place a bit._

_I stop in my tracks. Why? I don't know. But something feels off. I decide to ignore this strange feeling and sit back down on my swivel chair. _

_With each tube of blood I test, the feeling grows stronger. It gets to the point where I can't help but turn behind and say, "hello?"_

_I glance around the room a bit. Everything is right where they're supposed to be. Nothing seems off. The windows and doors are still shut tightly and the air conditioner is still rattling on and on, as if it were an old person rambling. In this moment where I am paying more attention to detail in the room, I can hear the grandfather clock silently ticking away in the background if I strain my ears. I narrow my eyes, nah, there's nothing weird going on right now. Must be the fact that it's really late, I've never worked this late before._

_But everything suddenly goes wrong. _

_I finish testing, good. I zip up my purse and take off my hair net and face mask. My shoulder length hair cascades back down and I tuck it behind my ear. Then the room suddenly gets a whole lot darker._

_I quickly turn back and notice that all the lights have gone off, except for the light in front of the store room. _

_Oh shit. I pick up my purse and then the air conditioner stops working. I break out in a cold sweat (as if I wasn't sweating enough) and my heart is racing. I run for the door and thank god it opens. I don't even bother leaving my lab coat in the lab where it belongs. I run like I never have and my lab coat is flying as I do so. Then the lights behind me go out one by one. _

_I turn behind me, nothing there, but I have a strong feeling there'll soon be. There's no way I'll let the darkness over take me. I run even faster and then I make a turn for the escalator. Whatever is chasing after me probably knows where I'm heading to, the noise my low heels are making are echoing all over the corridor. _

_I run down and then I head straight for the main entrance. I'm not wasting anymore time hanging around this hospital. I completely disregard the 'place your passes back in the pass room' rule. Especially given that that room is basically the epitome of creepy._

_So I run. I run as fast as my feet can carry me and I spend the rest of the night searching for a cab to take me home._

"The next day when the worker returned, they found blood smears all over the door of the store room, but that blood was from somewhere else, all the bags of blood in this room were still intact, the police were called in to investigate this, but after a few days they quickly shut down the investigation and accused the worker of being delirious,"

This was some dumb shit. I look at Lukas and he gives me a slight nod, trying to assure me that everything Therese told me was true. This couldn't be happening. Because, let's put it this way, out of everyone I know, Lukas and Therese Bondevik know shit when they see it.

"Okay…you've mentioned a store room in the anecdote, but we don't have a store room to begin with!"

"We do,", Lukas replies. He lifts his finger up and points to the lounging area, "that used to be the store room, explains why it's so small doesn't it,". All three of us looked to the familiar white door with the clear window. Like always, the blinds were up, two colleagues were laughing and chatting facing each other, their faces just inches apart due to the small size of the room. They suddenly turned to us and there was that moment of awkward eye contact between two groups, it didn't last for long once they both cracked up. I started to smile but stopped when I noticed Lukas and Therese didn't find anything too amusing about the situation. To think that this room right in front of me where two colleagues are sharing a good laugh, could have also been the place that the spawn of the devil tried to break through.

"Ok, but tell me, who was this worker in question?"

"Helen Karpusi , retired a year before you came in,"

"Helen as in Heracles's mother?"

"Yes,"

There's a long awkward silence. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE messing around and exploring the supernatural, but this story sounds a tad too cliché.

"What're you trying to accomplish telling me all of this?"

Lukas gestures to Therese and before I know it they're both huddled around me, "listen up,"

"Therese and I know that you can see the supernatural like us and Arthur, you'll be working late shift tonight alone, find out what that thing that scared Helen Karpusi was,"

I was actually pretty thrilled. It didn't matter that I might have my body ripped to shreds by hellhounds or be dragged to the deepest darkest depths of hell (which, admittedly, aren't as dark as you'd imagine. I've been there before). The point was I might be able to catch whatever it was the scared the living shit out of Helen Karpusi. I usually don't look forward to working late, but if working late comes with being able to stake out a demon, then hell yes I'll work late.

The clock on the wall read 9:44pm. Colleagues are gonna start leaving this room, and before you'd knew it, I'll be all alone.

Didn't take very long to happen, it was at 10:12pm when I was finally alone.

In the recount, Helen Karpusi described the room as being completely silent except for the rattling of the air conditioner. In this case however, there wasn't even any noise. The modern air conditioner is silent, so are the machines that operate. Everything was dead silent. Sometimes I'd have to hum a tune or cough or sniffle so the room wouldn't be so eerily quiet.

Hours went by. Sometimes I'd catch myself spinning all over the place in my swivel chair and playing with my stationary. But I'd have to stop because spinning all over the place in a blood testing lab is pretty dangerous. Yeah, I know I'm not supposed to be screwing around, but I'm distracted pretty easily.

Anyway, there's nothing spooky going on right now, I can sense that I'm the only one in the room. I look up at the clock, it's almost midnight. Wow, I've spent two hours fucking around in this lab bouncing off surfaces on my swivel chair. I am such a mature adult. I start tapping my pen against the surface of the table. Whatever's hiding in the lounging area should show up soon, ghosts like to show up at midnight, it's a cross between a cliché (for humans) and a verbal agreement (for spirits and that kind of stuff).

I wait for half an hour and nothing's still here. Guess the supernatural are learning how to switch things up. Maybe a bunch of nice ones will come and I'll have a surprise party, or maybe something will come and devour my soul. This hospital is more haunted than others in this state.

I saw the ghost of a woman who died in labour the day I came to work here. She could tell I could see her, she followed me around for a while. I tried to not let her get to me despite her freakish appearance: her hair, face and clothes were blood stained. After walking through some exhibits on the history of the hospital, I could tell she was wearing one of the maternity gowns from the sixties. Sometimes she'd hover really close to my face, sometimes she'd climb on the ceiling and follow me from above, I ignored her.

The department supervisor was still chatting on and on and on about expectations and how I'd have a pleasant experience working here. Words of encouragement don't really get through your head when there's hellspawn following you closely and breathing inches within your face.

The supervisor opened the wooden door and I got my first glimpse into my workplace. All the lab workers were hard at work, and no one seemed to pay much attention to me, they were too busy. Except for one lab worker. Ok, he wasn't a lab worker, he was wearing a surgeon's gown, but he looked as if he saw something horrifying. He knew of the ghost behind me.

The supervisor patted me on the back and wished me good luck. Then the surgeon walked towards me. He brushed past me while saying 'get away from it' in a voice that can only be described as 'I'm-telling-you-get-the-fuck-away-from-that-thing -shit-is-going-down', he pushed me into the lab as he walked out of the room and closed the door. The other workers still didn't seem to notice anything.

I stood there dumbstruck, I carefully placed my ear to the wooden door and heard screams of agony.

Was he trying to send it to where it belonged?

It didn't take long for him to come back.

He took off his face mask and I could see his features more clearly. He had a young face and blue eyes as lifeless as . "So you can see them too,", he said in his monotonous voice while trying to get a good look at my face.

"Get changed into your lab coat, I'll tell you more about this hospital during lunch,"

And that's the story of how I met Lukas. While I'm closest to Lukas and Therese in my department, I wouldn't consider them extremely close friends, we only bond on the fact that we can see these supernatural creatures, and on the fact that they don't call me 'vampire'. The same goes for Arthur Kirkland, that psychologist from block E, even though he's years older than us he has a very youthful look to him.

I suddenly set my pen down. It's here.

I get up from my seat and start glancing around the room. I notice that the blinds of the lounging room door are closed.

They're never closed.

I can't just pull them up, you can only do that from the inside. As a person with common sense, I'm not just gonna stay put in this room and let it get me. I open the main door and step out of it, then I go through the wooden door. I look around the corridor, there's nothing around. Everything's pretty still and silent, the only things moving are the potted plants suspended from the ceiling, gently swaying around.

Then door starts shaking violently. I stumble back a bit. I am really tempted to get closer but there's no way I'm putting my life on the line for this shit.

The door gently and silently opens up. It starts to make its way out. Oh God it's ugly.

It's a Samca. A spirit in Romanian mythology, and I never thought I'd ever meet her. She appears as they describe her. Long straggly hair, bony in shape, pale skin and breasts that touch the floor. Yes, breasts that touch the floor. I start to back up, I don't turn my back on her and run away, I don't even know how fast these things run. Do they even run? I don't wanna know.

At first it's alright, I've seen my fair share of freaky things so she's alright, and I'm trying my best to not show fear. I don't falter my gaze. But this eventually becomes difficult when I have to go down escalators. From that point on, this doesn't even feel particularly terrifying. What am I even trying to do here? I mean, if I could lead it to the main entance where there's more space, it would be easier to kill. But that wasn't even my intention from the beginning. I'm not thinking this through. In fact, I've never even killed an unclean spirit by myself, only with the assistance of others. If you couldn't tell, I'm pretty shit at demon hunting.

I'm also surprised this thing hasn't killed me already. I back off into the main entrance, finally. But I feel a menancing presence.

I'm too scared and unskilled to kill it. She looks at me with her glassy eyes. Fucking shit, I'm not ready for this. There's only one thing to do in a situation like this. Back up.

I run towards the front desk and grab a pencil off the front counter. Then I run into the pass room.

When I enter, the only light that's on in the room is the light from this lamp installed in the wall, it lights up when there're people in the room. Thanks light, for letting me be able to see that there isn't any bat shit spooky shit going on in this room.

I lock the door from the inside and waste no time getting to work. They say to prevent a Samca from entering a room, you write her name all over the room. I start scribbling 'Samca' on all the walls, the low ceiling and scratch her name into the wooden floor.

There's no way I'm letting this bitch get me.

To be extra safe, I cast a spell on the door. Now only humans can enter.

I sit cross legged on the floor and heave a sigh of relief. I am officially the shittiest exorcist to have lived.

I've spent just over 2 minutes in this room. Which is definitely more time than anyone has ever spent here. Not even the cleaners, I think. There're cobwebs building up around the ceiling, in fact, a spider is crawling towards me.

I've spent a fair amount of time around spiders when I was younger, they don't scare me.

"Hey friend,", I place my hand on the squeaky wooden floor so I can interact with it.

"Do you know there's a crazy demon thing outside this room that's trying to kill me?"

It crawls all over my hand, oblivious to the danger outside, or to the meaning of the words I speak. Being a spider sometimes sounds good, however, the pros and cons are the same. Among insects, you're the most feared, it gives you some power. Among humans, you're also really feared, but instead of having power, you're killed at first sight. Plus as a male spider, I'd probably get eaten up by some lady spider.

"Be free child,", I let it crawl onto a shelf.

I suppose I should familiarize myself with the room. It's old. There aren't just cobwebs in corners, there're piles of dust on the shelves where some files are kept. The rack where the keys are hung is going rusty, but where the passes are kept look alright though. (until you touch them, you'll realize how grimy they are then) I stand up and take my pass out of my pocket and place it where it belongs. There's this light next to it that switches on when the card is placed in it. Sounds pretty modern, but these things were probably installed in the 1990s, and that was about 20 years ago.

Wait. The shelves.

I can't really think of what files would be kept in here. Attendence? That sounds like something a school would do.

I pick one up and open it. It's a notebook. One of those cheap ones. 'Events: 2004', that was way before I worked here. I start to think of 2004 as a few years ago, no, it's almost a decade ago. Someone had recorded the hospital's events according to month in this notebook. Ok, not really someone, the handwriting and pen colour changes often. One moment I'm reading about a charity ball, the course of the events written down in rounded-cursive letters with gel ink black pen. And the next, I'm reading about a charity drive, the handwriting is angular, and the pen is a blue one, whose ink smudges where the writer presses down hard on the paper. It seems they just get whoever is available to write down what happens.

After I read the entries of some newer notebooks, I realize the better written contents are put together to make the monthly magazine. The one us workers are always given, but just chuck aside or recycle.

I check my watch. 12:45am. Ugh.

I take my coat off and lay it on the floor. I lie down on it. This is actually a pretty disgusting room to sleep in. I curl up into a fetal position, hugging my knees tightly. This isn't exactly the best position to be in. I'll just let the hours past, leave when the first workers come in, escape home, and call in sick.

Then again, my stuff is all in the lab… this will be hard to pull off.

But I'm tired, so I'll make the best of my situation.

Hours pass, and I'm sleeping. Which is actually pretty good. But there's a sudden banging on the door. I awake, and quickly sit up.

My watch reads 3:47am. The banging continues. Then the lights go out and I am officially freaking out.

What I should have done was use the light spell, it would immediately turn on all light sources in the room and everything would be alright. But no, I was panicking. I couldn't exactly make out what the figure standing before me was, so I hissed. I hissed very loudly and for some reason, all lights in the room switched on (even the green light that indicates a pass is put in its place) shone brighter than ever.

The person standing in front of me is Julchen Beilschmidt. Her eyes widen in fear, "ARE YOU ACTUALLY A VAMPIRE?"

I stop hissing and roll my eyes and the lights dim a little. I pull her leg, effectively dragging her into the room.

Eduard's POV:

I was nodding off to sleep, my eyelids felt heavy. Can't blame me, it's 3am. The darkness of this room further emphasized the brightness of the 18 or so screens before, making me to want to close my eyes. This is the first early morning shift I'm working, I usually work in the late afternoon, where it's easier to stay awake, and there're actually things to see on these screens, as of now nothing is happening.

I work in security. But I'm not security guard, and I don't look like on in anyway. I look like one of those nerdy programmers you see on movies. It actually was my dream from young to be like them, and I was so close. I studied computer science in college, and I topped my class. But let's just say life doesn't always run it's course and I'm stuck with job monitoring security camera footage.

I wouldn't mind working in the afternoon where there's actually things to monitor, as of now, no one's hanging around the hallways or alley ways. So it won't hurt to close my eyes for a while, right?

I lay my head on the table. Yes, sweet rest.

But it doesn't take long for me to be rudely awakened by someone shaking my shoulders.

"Eduard, wake up! You're falling asleep, I'll take over from here,"

My eyes open, the light blinds them, I squint and adjust my spectacles. "Thanks,", I stretch as I get out of my seat. I pick up my bag off the floor. I suddenly realize there is no way I can get a bus home.

"Can I just sleep in this room till next morning?"

"Um, you could sleep in the dormitories?"

"We have dormitories?"

"Yes? Stay here, I'll call Irina to take you there,"

I didn't know we had dorms here, but then again, there're lots of places in this hospital that I'm pretty sure I don't know of. This hospital is pretty big. No directory can properly depict how everything is organised. The large size of the place contributes to how weird it is. The other thing is the people working in here. In my circle of friends (that appears large, but is simply a small group in this hospital), you've got people who're stoic and hardworking, but sometimes show their snarky and mysterious side. You've got people who generally mess around with others, and then you got the really really weird ones. When I say weird I men 'practice black magic' weird.

"I don't even have clothes to change out to,"

"Well, just sleep in the clothes you're wearing, change when you get back home tomorrow,"

I guess I have no choice. There aren't any trains here that take you to where I live, there's no way I can get cab at this time in this area.

In a few minutes, I meet up with Irina Cherneko.

Between her, Ivan and Natalia, she's the nicest. I mean, she doesn't scare the living shit out of anyone. And between the three of them, she would be the most familiar with these dorms. She works in the maternity wards, so she stays in overnight the hospital often.

"Hi Eduard!"

"Hey,"

Yeah, she's pretty nice.

We walk down the dimly lit corridor. The hospital saves money by turning off all lights in rooms and corridors, except for one light that is to remain on at all times. The hospital loses some of it's lively spirit, due to the lack of visitors and weird staff mentioned above. The only company Irina and I have are each other, the plants, the security cameras and the security cameras hidden in plants.

Security falls under Administration, they were the ones that decided to use the sheer amount of plants to their advantage. That potted plant near the counter, sure it gets in the way, but it gives many good angles of the waiting area here. Administration pretends to hate the plants, they actually LOVE them.

It would be pretty quiet too if I wasn't walking with Irina. Her breasts are so big, they make noise as she moves. Everyone here knows her for her huge breasts. They are HUGE. Ivan mentioned she can't afford a good binder, so she just wears really fitting bras. Based on appearance, they can barely support them, and they give her back problems, she complains about them all the time.

I remembered when she first arrived. All the guys were like 'aye girl lemme check you out' and now they're more like 'oh God that looks painful are you alright do you need to sit down'

"I didn't know we had dormitories,", I try to start conversation so we don't have to spend the walk there listening to her boob noises.

"Yup! They were first built for those working in maternity, which is why it's so close to block E, then they decided to open it to all the staff,"

Thank God I started this conversation. It sounds hellish to spend a walk from block B to E just listening to boob noises.

She tells me about the facilities there and how it's pretty new and stuff. Then our conversation drifts to parts of the building we didn't know existed for a long time. I didn't know we had blocks B2, C2 and D2. She tells me she knows of D2, those are where the fancy maternity wards are, but she had no idea we had a B2 and C2. This hospital is really big. It's so big workers around here often have to remind themselves of the hospital's sheer largeness.

And because it's now Halloween we side track to horror stories we've heard of in our departments. Irina talks about the stories older nurses have told her, about the unrested spirits of women who have died in childbirth, disturbing the nurses. I tell her about the stories from colleagues and how there have been times they've seen weird shadows and figures in the cameras.

Turns out talking about ghosts isn't exactly the best thing to do in the early hours of the morning and everything looks significantly more creepy.

"We're approaching the building,", Irina tells me. She sidetracks to this quiet path covered with structures with vines growing on them. Admittedly, it looks pretty romantic. Ha! I might not look like the type to be a smooth talker, but I know a thing or two when it comes to complimenting ladies, I have amazing wit! Well, I usually don't use my wit to talk to girls, but I use it to get out of difficult situations. Like when Ivan is coming after me…

The path to the building is pebbled. It passes through a small park, filled with plants that can actually survive in this climate without the help of greenhouses. I can see the dormitory building in the background. It looks pretty good actually. It looks like one of those fancy condominiums you see upstate.

Irina enters the building with me to walk me through the process of getting a room.

Once we enter, the first thing I see isn't the pleasantly cozy concierge, but the disgruntled receptionist. Her expression doesn't falter when we enter, her eyes aren't even fully open, her messy hair just emphasizes her disgruntled-ness.

"Good evening, what can I do for you,", she said it as if she's said that line millions of times. But there was something different to it. The way she said evening, it was drenched in sarcasm. I understand, it's not evening, it's 3 in the morning now.

"Hi Julchen! Could you get Eduard a room?"

"Yeah sure,"

So this was Julchen Beilschmidt. Everyone here knows of the Beilschmidt siblings, there're four of them: Monica, Gilbert, Ludwig and Julchen. (This list goes from oldest to youngest) Monica and Ludwig are pretty Spartan, but Gilbert's the complete opposite. I've never really talked to Julchen, but from what I'm seeing, she looks like someone who messes things up and takes pride in it. Kinda like Gilbert.

We go through some scanning of passes and Julchen gives me an electronic pass.

"I'll show you to your room,", she says as she walks off to the lift.

"Well,", Irina gives me a pat on the back,"I've got to get back to work, bye!"

I wave to her, and then quickly run to the elevator where Julchen is waiting.

Her left arm is casually resting on her hip, the other one is trying to neaten up her hair, but she's making it worse. She sighs a lot while we wait for the lift and makes sour faces. When she does so, I notice that she has a scar on her face. It's not very significant, but it must have looked pretty bad when she first got that. I mean, it runs across her eye.

Now that I think about it, she looks like Gilbert too. They both have really pale skin and fair hair, people have mistaken Gilbert for being an albino, he claims he isn't. But he sure as hell looks like one. Now it feels kind of creepy, intensely analyzing her appearance.

"Ding!", the lift arrives.

She walks into the lift before me. She presses the button to get to the floor we're going to, which is nice of her. Or is it part of her job description?

The lift ride up is long and awkward, even though we're only travelling 3 floors up. The lift's walls, and floor are tiled with this shiny black tile, that has a somewhat holographic look to it. But doors of the lift are silver, with mirrors built into them. I can see Julchen still has her arms crossed, and is drumming her fingers against her arms.

"Ding!", the lift doors open. The lift stands at the end of a long common corridor, which, thankfully, is well lit. The floor and wall of the corridor, is covered with the same tile used in the lift. It's beginning to look as if the interior designer was in a stump. The wooden doors and the light fixtures don't even go with the black tiles! And of course, this place looks like a part of the hospital due to the large amount of potted plants.

She suddenly stops at a door halfway through the corridor and waits for me to catch up with her. So I run.

She opens the door for me, and turns on the lights in the room, "this is your room, the door isn't locked from the inside but it is from the outside, when you want to leave just open the door, but take your pass with you,", she breezes through the explanation. She shoves me inside the room. She closes the door and I'm alone.

Julchen's POV:

I jog down the long corridor that almost looks as if it's sparkling, the holographic black tiles are reflecting light off all over the place. It can look quite nice on somedays, but it just looks blinding today.

Today's one of those days where I have a 'fuck this, fuck that' kind of attitude. I pull my phone out of my skirt pocket, it's officially Halloween. I should be feeling spooked out, or whatever, but as of now, I don't give a fuck.

Today was also the kind of day for me to think about my current predicament. How ironic that I'm working in a hospital dormitory, but have spent all my life trying to avoid working in the medical industry. I'm a failed hotel concierge, I got fired after a few months of working. It was Gilbert who got me this job, this job that I totally despise.

The lift blacks out for a few second. For a renovated place, things break down often. Lift lights often go off, and the sinks in the first floor common toilet sometimes don't work for months.

The lights come back on. The light bulbs have cracked and the mirror in the lift door has been broken.

That doesn't usually happen.

The lift door open up and I head back to front desk. Emmett, the guy who monitors the security cameras here, has messaged me.

'Julchen get Eduard and run'

'just get the heckie out of the place'

Was that what the black out was about. Emmett isn't the kind to play pranks, but he sure is committed to this one. What a Halloween prank. I bet he's sitting in the monitor room with some friends from a later shift, watching over me and waiting in anticipation for me to freak the fuck out. And then proceed the laugh so hard they piss all over the room. That's kind of what life does to me everyday, except life laughs at me no matter what the circumstances.

'emmett im not fooled'

'julchen would you like to die?'

'yes why not id be happy to end this miserable existance'

'julchen'

I roll my eyes. Look, if it is a ghost trying to scare me, they need to try harder.

'people die in horror films becayse they do what youre doing now'

'*becase'

'**because'

'damnit'

Loser.

'can you just HUMOR me and leave this place with eduard, who I know is the only person stying here tonight'

'*staying'

'DAMNIT'

I rolled my eyes so hard they did a 360 and came full circle. He tries to be like Laura in a lot of aspects, but he just can't. I mean, for one thing, Laura doesn't have a ton of typos when texting.

'fine ill HUMOR you and leave with eduard'

I set my phone aside and called up Eduard with the phone at the front desk. A weird thing happened.

A voice came on that said 'dear customer, the service provider you are using is having difficulties, please try again later' but it didn't exactly sound like that. It had static and I almost couldn't make out the words at end, but I realized it was just static German after pondering for a bit.

Right after the pondering was when I fled the hotel in fear. Screw Eduard, whatever it is can just swallow him whole.

I called up Emmett as I ran.

"I don't know what is going on but I can't contact Eduard, you get him out of there,"

He tried to respond but I immediately hung up. I ran past the long, intimidating looking corridors of block E.

The only light in the corridor that was on was the ceiling light in the middle. As soon as I ran past it, it turned off. The darkness swallowed me up. I started quickening my pace and taking longer strides. The flats I was wearing was beginning to tear into my feet.

I headed straight to the main entrance because that's what you do when you want to get out of a building. You head for the fastest way out.

There was no way I was going to waste time returning my worker's pass. I don't care if the hospital is going to fine me for it.

It is at the entrance where I see this hagged looking woman thing with breasts touching the floor blocking the entrance.

Actually the pass room sounds like a good idea now.

I run straight to it. It doesn't open up at first, and the thing is approaching me. So I flip out and kick the door open. The first thing I see is Andrei hissing at me and the lights in the room are going haywire, even the little green ones that turn on when you return your pass.

"ARE YOU ACTUALLY A VAMPIRE?", I shout.

He rolls his eyes and the lights in the room return to normal. He drags me into the room, stands up and closes the door in one swift movement. He is actually a vampire.

"Tell me about what happened to you and I'll tell you what happened to me,"

Eduard's POV:

I'm sleeping on my side, facing the wall, my back facing the rest of the room.

I don't like this room.

I don't like how the beds don't have some sort of firmness, but just some sort of spongy matteress my body is slowly sinking into. I don't like how it resembles a hotel to some extent. With a large white desk and modern table lamp placed on top on it. They look good, but if you check them, you can see they still have their label and pricetag. Their some of the cheapest furniture in ikea. I don't like that. I don't know why.

Plus, this room is dark. Very dark. When the lights are turned off, the room almost has a claustrophobic feeling to it. I don't like it.

I'm sleeping with my phone and glasses next to me, it's an old habit.

I almost started to drift off when my phone lit up, darn, forgot to put it on 'do not disturb'.

It's a message from Emmett, that guy who monitors the cameras in the dormitories.

'Eduard, it's me Emmett, youre in room 7 in the 3rd floor right?'

'Yes' I reply.

'Look, there was a hooded figure in your room just now, it just left through the window. Eduard, get out of there. As fast as you can. Just get out of here, don't even bother staying in this hospital anymore'

'what'

'eduard this is serious you might die run like right now'

'where am I supposed to go'

'JUST RUN'

Well shit.

I remember what Julchen told me about the door and how they work. It could work if I do this fast enough.

I threw my blanket off me, picked up my shoes and ran out the door, my phone in pocket. I could wear my shoes in the lift.

The lift ride down was different from the lift ride up. For one thing, one the lift door mirrors was now cracked and while the light bulbs were working, the glass casing was broken. Oddly enough, there weren't any glass shards lying around. Another thing, I was frantically wearing my shoes, my heart racing in fear that whatever it was would show up while the lift lights go out.

But that didn't happen and I too my chance and ran straight out of the place. At this point it should have occurred to me that Julchen wasn't at the front desk, but I was too scared to realize it.

The fastest way to get out of the building would be to run out of block E and head straight for the main entrance.

But I hesitate to run past the PITCH BLACK corridors. But heck, it's go home or go hard. And I would really like to go home instead of go hard, but in this case the only way to go home is to go hard. So I really got no choice here.

I run. This corridor takes you straight to the main entrance so I just have to keep running and hope I've still got all my organs at the end. I can see the dimly lit main entrance at the end, and even though the light is still faint as I get close to it, it still gives me hope. I think it's a great metaphor about how people will hang on to the slightest slither of hope in a desperate situation! I am amazing.

What happens at the main entrance is a good metaphor that the silver of hope turned out to be something absolutely terrifying. The first thing I see is a hagged woman creature thing clawing at the door. She starts to trudge towards me, so I run. I run as fast as I can towards the entrance, only to realize it can't be opened.

The thing that caught my attention was the pass room. Given that she was clawing on it, means there might be other people there.

And she's pretty far away from it, so I make a run for it. In these few minutes, I have noped the most nope I have ever noped.

I kicked and scratched at the door as it came closer. "LET ME IN", I shouted desperately, hoping that I could just escape from whatever it was.

The door suddenly opened up and I stumbled back. Julchen dragged me in by my feet.

"I'm gonna assume you saw it too,", Andrei asks me.

"It?"

"The demon outside,"

We start to talk about what happened and put things together in chronological order. Before realizing it was 4am and we all were very tired.

The rest of the morning was awkwardly spent with the three of us locked in the room, squeezed together along the floor. Even though I didn't see their faces, I could tell that we all were trying to sleep, but the fear of the unknown and the filthiness of our enviorment kept us awake.

The next morning, a receptionist opened the door the pass room, only to be shocked to find three staff members lying together together on the floor. We all scrambled out immediately and went our separate ways. While Andrei is certain we saw a demon, Julchen and I are in denial.

**[1] In this fic, characters are much older than their physical age in hetalia. I couldn't have a bunch of twenty somethings as experienced doctors. A GP trains for 9 years before being able to work in a hospital!**

A/N: So there's that. Once again apologies for the long wait. I may or may not edit this chapter in the future. Thanks for reading!


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